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HE TURNED TOWARD HER AND LOOKED LONG UPON THE 
FACE THAT HAD BECOME HIS STAR 






UNDER THE 

LAW 

BY 

EDWINA STANTON BABCOCK 


Frontispiece by 
RALPH P. COLEMAN 


THE PENN PUBLISHING 
COMPANY PHILADELPHIA 

1922 



4 



\ 


COPYRIGHT 
1922 BY 
THE PENN 
PUBLISHING 
COMPANY 



Under the Law 



Made in the U. S. A. 


M 15 ’23 


© Cl A 69286 0 


l 

i 






Inscribed to the 
SardSy Mingas and Dunstans 
of this age 


“ But if ye be led of the Spirit ye are not under the law.” 

—Galatians 5:18. 


Contents 


I. 

Action 

• 

• 



7 

II. 

Under the Law 

• 

• 



15 

III. 

By-Laws . 

• 

• 



*9 

IV. 

Other Laws 

• 

• 



26 

V. 

For Life . 

• 

• 



3 2 

VI. 

Minga’s Laws . 

• 

• 



43 

VII. 

The Organ Builder’s House 



55 

VIII. 

T RAITS 

• 

• 



64 

IX. 

Whooping It Up 

• 

• 



79 

X. 

The Expedition 

• 

• 



92 

XI. 

Terms 

• 

• 



108 

XII. 

The Man on the 

Place 

• 



120 

XIII. 

Pears and Poetry 

• 

• 



*3* 

XIV. 

Pink Pearls 

• 

• 



i47 

XV. 

Revelations 

• 

• 



i59 

XVI. 

Sophistication . 

• 

• 



l 75 

XVII. 

A Good Name . 

• 

• 



194 

XVIII. 

The Tawny Troop Method 



210 

XIX. 

Old Letters 

• 

• 



2 33 

XX. 

Explosive Dust . 

• 

• 



249 




6 


CONTENTS 


XXI. 

Authority .... 

. 267 

XXII. 

Suspicion 

. 285 

XXIII. 

The Perceptions of Minga . 

. 305 

XXIV. 

“ Terry!” .... 

. 321 

XXV. 

The Mede and the Persian . 

. 326 

XXVI. 

Penalties .... 

• 335 

XXVII. 

The Judge is Impressed . 

• 347 



Under the Law 


CHAPTER I 

ACTION 

The streets between Willow Roads and the little 
town of Morris on the Hudson were still corrugated 
with March thaw. But the sun shone warmly and 
there was the wet smell of oncoming spring in the air. 
Women flung open their coats at the neck; children 
skipped lightly to school. The river took on an ethe¬ 
real light that to the shadmen meant the time when 
their soggy boats would be moored to the long lines of 
stakes near the channel. The country highways were 
less hopeless with mud, and the spring tramp began 
appearing at back doors. 

A girl, driving her car rather absently through the 
unimaginative streets of Morris, stopped suddenly at 
sight of a ring of loafers gathered by the curb in a side 
street, jeering mildly and apparently baiting a tumbled 
heap of something in the gutter. What was it? A 
dog? A child? Sard Bogart, her brown eyes alert, 
sprang from her car and went over to see. 

As the girl approached the group, one or two of the 
older and better dressed townspeople edged rather 
shamefacedly away. The village postman, hailing 
the girl loquaciously, explained, “Just one of them 

7 


8 


UNDER THE LAW 


Gloomy Guses. They come out like turtles this time 
of the year. This feller has likely stole a ride on a 
freight car and been dumped off at West Morris. 
Seems he’s trying to pertend he don’t know who he is. 
That ain’t hard for a tramp; ain’t nobody anyhow.” 
The postman scratched his head, wishing to cover all 
aspects of the matter. “ Ef he’s drunk, it’s a new 
kind of drunk. Vanilla extract, they tell me, is what 
this kind boozes on nowadays.” To the girl’s indig¬ 
nant question, “ Oh, they ain’t doing him no harm; 
just worrying him a little to see him act funny. The 
authorities?” the postman looked a little vague. 
“ Well, I should say, it being about noon, that the 
authorities has gone home to their dinners.” 

The young figure crossed the street and approached 
the jeering loafers absorbed in prodding the helpless 
bundle of humanity in the gutter. They shoved it 
from side to side as they demanded, “ Say, where’s 
yer wife? Where’d ye come from? We’ll tell yer 
where to get off! Say, Jack, where do you keep the 
stuff? You tell me, I won’t let anybody know.” 

More comments of a humorous nature were made 
for the benefit of the girl approaching. “ He ain’t so 
handsome when ye come close up.” One wag hushed 
the others elaborately. “ No, mebbe it’s some friend 
of this young lady’s. Say, take him for a ride, Miss. 
I’ll bet he ain’t never had one.” 

“ Give him a shave first,” urged one gum-chewing 
youth. There was violent nudging from a rather 
stout woman in the group. “ Shut up! Ain’t you got 
no sense? That’s Judge Bogart’s daughter.” Then 


ACTION 


9 


to railing unbelief, “ Sure it is. Ain’t I washed down 
to her house a hundred times? Hullo, Miss Bogart, 
ain’t it terrible how these fellers is treating that poor 
drunk ? ” 

At the voice, the girl lifted her concerned gaze from 
the sight of the wretched figure sitting now on the 
curbstone, both bleeding shoe-wrecked feet in the 
gutter. 

“ Mrs. Croyder, this is pitiful. Why doesn’t some¬ 
one do something? Why do the authorities permit 
people to be tormented like this ? ” 

Mrs. Croyder, as one not accustomed to question the 
vagaries of the authorities, was a little vague. 

“ Well, now, Mr. Snowgen, that’s the policeman, 
wouldn’t never hear to anything like it, but he’s gone 
home to his dinner.” 

“ Then the traffic police ? ” The girl looked about 
her eagerly. 

“ They’ve gone home to their dinners.” 

“ But surely-” With an impatient exclamation 

the girl bent down in the middle of the awed circle 
and looked keenly into the face of the vagabond on 
the curb. She examined the bleeding feet and pale, 
distraught face and spoke very gently. “ Can I help 
you ? ” 

The soft girlish tones seemed hardly to penetrate to 
the consciousness of the tramp. He did not look up 
nor try to answer. At last, in response to the prod¬ 
ding toe of a village gamin and his challenge, “ Say, 
ain’t you got no manners? The lady is speakin’ to 
yer,” the head, sunk between the shivering shoulders. 



10 


UNDER THE LAW 

was raised with a sodden, uncomprehending look. 
Then the man, ragged, unshaven, with an unspeakable 
look of abandoned misery, did a strange thing. He 
struggled, shaking as with palsy, to his feet. There 
was a week’s reddish growth of beard on his white 
face; his voice, very feeble, stammered and was lost 
in places, but he replied slowly, “ Can—can you read 
that name in my hat? Perhaps there is an address 
there, I don’t know. I can’t remember.” With a 
hand like a claw, the tramp pointed to a wrinkled cap 
lying in the gutter. 

Sard, seeing him sway as though he would pitch for¬ 
ward, put out an arm to steady him. At this, a 
passer-by came up to her and, without a word, sup¬ 
ported the collapsing man on the other side. This 
youth smiled sympathetically. 

“ Is there anything I can do, Miss Bogart? ” 

The girl turned sharply. “ Mr. Lowden,” then with 
a little air of relief, “ this man seems dazed, sick. 
Oughtn’t we get help? Oughtn’t we to do some¬ 
thing ? ” 

“ Wait till Snowgen gets back from his dinner,” 
bawled the chorus of loafers. A dozen voices ad¬ 
vised, “ Snowgen will put him in the lock-up, and if 
he can’t prove anything, they’ll send him up for va¬ 
grancy. Here’s his hat. No, ma’am, I wouldn’t touch 
it if I was you; that ain’t no hat fer a lady to hold.” 
One of the group, with effects of delicate shrinking, 
held the wretched headgear so that the girl could read 
a name written with ink on a piece of tape stitched in¬ 
side on the lining. There were two initials smutted 


ACTION 


11 


beyond recognition, but she could distinguish the sur¬ 
name “ Colter.” With a curious little gesture of cour¬ 
tesy, she bent to the pitiful figure she was helping sup¬ 
port, asking gravely and distinctly, “ Mr. Colter, you 
are in trouble. Can we help you? Is there anything 
we can do for you ? ” 

This courtesy to the forlorn scarecrow the crowd 
found vastly amusing. The thing brought laughter 
and the inevitable double entente of small-town 
comprehension. At last someone said wrathfully, 
“Shut up! Don’t you know nothing? That there’s 
the Judge’s daughter. She ain’t no fool!” The 
crowd, now avid for more sensation, watched to see 
how the wastrel tottering there would take this thing. 

The shaking hand was held out for the cap. Some 
bystander with rough hand jammed it on the tumbled 
head of thick auburn hair, but the tramp feebly re¬ 
moved it. He turned slowly, staring into the girl’s 
face. His eyes, of a very intense blue, were large and 
unnaturally bright, as from fever. 

“ Thank you,” he said weakly. Then with a swift 
glance full of unnameable shame, “ Please don’t 
worry about me. I am only going to find work— 
somewhere.” The man closed his eyes, muttering, 
“ When I can forget—when I can remember-” 

Sard Bogart turned to the youth who was helping 
her. “ Will you come with me ? ” she appealed. 

He nodded. 

“ I am going to drive this poor thing to that little 
boarding-house on Norman Street. I know the 
woman who keeps it. It is quiet and clean.” 



12 


UNDER THE LAW 


The circle of loafers tittered. “ Say, lady, wait till 
Snowgen gets back from his dinner. Snowgen can 
take the feller to the right boarding-house, all 
right.” 

The girl, for answer, smiled good-humoredly. 
“ Mr. Snowgen can interview this man after he has 
been fed and can speak for himself. Just at present, 
Mr. Lowden and I will take charge.” 

Lowden, the young assistant of the Morris Bank, 
frowned on any more suggestions, and together the 
man and girl supported the wretched figure to the car. 
Together they somehow got it to a seat. Then the 
young fellow watched Sard with admiration as she 
calmly drove with her rather dubious-looking passen¬ 
ger through the staring streets of Morris. 

The girl was silent, and the young banker made but 
one observation. “ Small town life breeds a thirst for 
sensation, doesn’t it? It never gets mentally to the 
economic questions lying back of the sensation.” 

“ It is still the Binet Test, fourteen-year-old mind,” 
laughed the girl. 

As the car halted before the little boarding-house on 
Norman Street, Lowden begged, “ I wish you’d let me 
handle all the rest.” 

The girl turned her eyes on him. “ You think I 
may meet with awkward things ? ” 

The young banker was evasive. “ Let’s remember 
we are rather a mean little town,” he said simply. 
“ Please leave it all to me. I’ll do exactly as you 
say.” 

The girl’s grave look rested on the wreck of a man 


ACTION 


13 


sitting in a heap beside her, his head sunk on his chest, 
his ragged coat open and showing his bare, famished- 
looking chest, his white lips muttering feebly. 

“ I want him put to bed and fed—very lightly at 
first. I want him bathed and shaved, after a doctor 
has seen him. I want him either sent to the hospital 
here at my expense or, when he is strong enough, to 
come to my father for work. I want him to be sure, 
sure, he has friends. I want him,” the quick tears 
came into her young eyes, “ to feel that he has another 
chance.” 

The youth nodded, his eyes on hers. This was Sard 
Bogart, the Judge’s daughter, who had been back from 
college only a few months. It was understood in the 
villages of Morris and Willow Roads that Miss Bogart 
was a “ queer,” lonely girl, impatient of many things, 
apt to be impulsive and to do impolitic and “ unpopu¬ 
lar ” things. This was one of the things—pulling a 
muddy gutter-snipe out of the gutter. Yet the light 
in the girl’s clear brown eyes was a new and grateful 
thing to the young bank officer. Somehow he felt as 
if he had never looked into a fine woman’s eyes before. 
He took his orders gladly and with sober admiration. 
“And keep me in touch, won’t you ? ” The girl leaned 
from the car, laying her commands on him. He lifted 
his hat gravely. 

Lowden alighted and helped down the ragged 
vagrant. His gentleness was like Sard’s own. The 
girl, watching this gentleness, saw the broken figure 
of the man try to turn once—try to look back at her. 
“Yes?” said the girl. “Yes?” Then her eyes, 


14 


UNDER THE LAW 


warm with pity, “ Wait a moment, please, Mr. Low- 
den. Yes, Colter, what is it you want to say?” 

But she could not understand. She saw only a 
shaken, shivering man muttering, “ I can't remember,” 
and again the stammering sentence, “ I can't remem¬ 
ber.” 


CHAPTER n 


UNDER THE LAW 

The house faced on the river. The massive hills 
that turned bronze in the setting sun were irregular 
background for the white castle-like buildings on the 
eastern banks. But the western shore of the Hudson 
had set between small mountains little, hilly-look¬ 
ing villages; among them were the Dutch towns, 
Morris and Willow Roads, whose old roofs, slowly 
giving way to factories and churches of one period, 
were at last disappearing before the real estate man's 
idea of a suburban development. At the edge of this 
development were the far-apart homes of the well- 
to-do and the long lines of green lawns; the rich trees 
and tinted shrubberies were illumined and laced with 
a thousand lovely colors of massed iris and waving 
tulips set, like the gardens on the river, against royal 
purple of opposite shores. 

Sard's room was in the square tower of the house 
her father had built in his more grandiloquent days. 
If the Judge's wife had lived, they might have length¬ 
ened and strengthened the home into something like a 
practical sunny house of our day, but as it was, the 
curious construction of red sandstone and black and 
white Tudor retained its perplexed conglomerate air, 
only saved from freakishness by the soft mantle of 
vines that ruffled the chimney and girdled its windows. 

*5 


16 


UNDER THE LAW 


All around to the sloping banks of the river were the 
trees that the Judge’s father had planted and tended 
into maturity. It was a League of Nations in Trees! 
English maples, Norway spruces, lindens, horse- 
chestnuts from Versailles, Japanese maples and Greek 
planes and orange trees from along the Mediterra¬ 
nean. To Sard, since her very first party dress, those 
trees had seemed a sort of litany; the noble forms of 
every clime and country raised their mysterious crests, 
sought with yearning roots, were full of the first mur¬ 
mur of June-bee days; waved like women the soft 
undulations of their shapes, bathed in blue morning or 
loomed in formless grandeur on the night. 

It was a puzzle to Sard that these trees kept to the 
laws of their growth in one soil. 

The windows of Sard’s room opened to the four 
winds and gave on the tree-fringed expanse of water. 
At night those tower panes were literally dashed with 
stars. As a little girl she had lain watching their fairy 
dance like fireflies; later her clear brown eyes became 
fixed thoughtfully on what seemed strings of jasmine¬ 
like blossoms. Coming home from boarding-school, 
the stars half thrilled her with mystical trailing blos¬ 
soms of a home-sky, but now of late, after college 
and a new sense of values, these stars had suddenly 
ceased throwing their soft lights across the panes. 
East, west, north and south, they now stood in an 
awful order like knights leaning on spears. They 
were challenging in their geometry, severe in their 
puzzling fixity; they seemed to say—“ Well, Sard, you 
are grown up now; you make your own choices; 


UNDER THE LAW 17 

what is your law? We have our law—have you dis¬ 
covered yours ? ” 

During two years at college Sard had thought little 
about “ law.” The stars there had asked few ques¬ 
tions. They had seemed companionable, dashing con¬ 
fidently, shining over the campus with capricious 
groups of girls; they had shone on bright camp-fires 
and twinkled at the saucy songs shouted into their 
very eyes. The college stars had seemed to vibrate 
like sleigh-bells to such defiant songs as “ Where, oh 
death, is thy stingalingaling ? ” and they thrilled to a 
thousand funny whistles and calls of a rather self¬ 
consciously emphasized youth. But here they were 
back with their spell and their question. Knights with 
spears, they rode softly past the window-panes, keep¬ 
ing their geometric order, saying, insistently—“ This 
is our law; we obey always. What is your law ? ” 

At first the thing had awed Sard, then saddened her. 
So after all, the world physical went on this grand 
orderly, terrible sort of way, and so did the spiritual 
world seem to, no matter how much one wanted to 
change things; but the world of people and purpose? 
how about that? 

What should be the laws of one’s life? The books 
on Sard’s shelves gleamed in the moonlight. Here 
and there they had helped and suggested and one or 
two men or women Sard had met seemed to have an 
idea. Then this thing they called “ Love ”—Sard, 
lying in bed, pondered; did love do what people said 
it did, sweeten, make deeper, wiser? Well, Sard had 
seen girls at college who became engaged, said they 


18 


UNDER THE LAW 


were in love, certainly were changed and made queer 
by a force bigger than themselves; and yet it all 
seemed to end trivially. One or two children, a little 
house not very well kept, a tired husband, not 
“ enough ” money . . . and there were other 

girls who mocked at love and played with it and co¬ 
quetted until their faces became cynical, hard and 
horrible. ... If there were things that swept 
people so they rose bigger and finer than they had ever 
dreamed themselves to be, that might count some way, 
but how did they start becoming bigger and finer? 
One couldn’t go down-stairs and announce to one’s 
family—“ From now on I am going to be bigger and 
finer.” So, tossing away from the star inquiry, turn¬ 
ing penitently back to it, the young form fought out 
the thing. A sense of awful loneliness and youth came 
to Sard, an awful sense of not knowing herself, not 
working from the most inward of her. She stretched 
out appealing arms—“ What are my laws ? ” she asked 
softly. “ Oh, what are my laws? ” For Sard knew, 
and knew with feelings of awe that for every life that 
counted there must be laws. 


CHAPTER III 


BY-LAWS 

The Judge opened the door and propelled himself 
into the room in a finicking, faultfinding way, pecu¬ 
liarly inappropriate to his massive shoulders and head. 
He grunted something to Sard’s “ Good-morning, 
Dad,” picked up his paper and flapped it into a fold. 
His slow eyes, seeming like ground glass set in front 
of the remorseless deliberations of his mind, paused 
at the coffee-um, as he made inquiry: 

“ Dunstan not down yet ? ” 

For answer Dunstan Bogart shuffled down the broad 
stairs and, slipping on a rug, entered the dining-room 
with an operatic air of being in extreme haste. Half 
tumbling into the room, he halted, dramatically, ap¬ 
pearing to remind himself that the breakfast-room was 
holy ground. “ Greeting to thee, fellow sufferers,” 
he announced cheerfully. He made passes at his fa¬ 
ther’s back, stared his aunt solemnly in the face, ruf¬ 
fled Sard’s hair and finally took his seat. 

“Frogs in the finger-bowls again?” he questioned 
sepulchrally. “ Else why all this gloom ? ” 

The Judge, unnoticing, motioned his finished grape¬ 
fruit away. No one appearing to effect this transfer, 
he indicated the butler’s pantry back of him and Sard 
felt anew for the electric bell. 

*9 


20 


UNDER THE LAW 


“ I wonder if this thing works—it doesn’t seem to 
ring in the kitchen.” 

“ It is at present ringing in the chicken-coop and 
the garage,” announced Dunstan; “ I heard it as I 
dressed—it is ringing in the furnace and in the foun¬ 
tain ; it is ringing in Heaven, it is ringing—in—excuse 

M 

me. 

The Judge, twitching the paper, looked at his son. 
“ She ought to hear it,” he growled; " ring it again.” 

Dunstan suddenly dived under the table, feeling for 
the button. 

“ Blame not the damsel,” came the lad’s voice, this 
time near Sard’s feet. 

“ Cuss the battery if you must cuss.” He emerged 
from under the table and catapulted into the kitchen, 
where he nearly upset the cook, entering with a tray 
of smoking Sally Lunn. His father followed him 
with a cold eye of disgust. 

“ Does he think that sort of thing amusing? ” he in¬ 
quired. The sacks under the Judge’s dull eyes had a 
slightly swelled, feverish look. The eyes themselves 
were leaden gooseberry and boiled hard in the pupil. 
The Judge’s nose, aristocratic and sharp, held a fear¬ 
ful look of pride, and the grizzled hair, scant on his 
head, was heavy on ears and eyebrows. Sard had 
often thought that the men and women brought before 
her father must have had dread long before the 
slightly nasal voice deliberately twanged out the sen¬ 
tence. But as a little girl she remembered her mother 
always said to her, “ Baby, we love Foddie, don’t we ? 
Foddie won’t send us with the naughty pwisoners to 


BY-LAW,$ 


21 


pwison. Foddie won’t take away all our nice toys and 
put us in dungeons.” There was invariably a smell of 
cologne and little soft tickles of curls that went with 
this, and a rustle of spreading ruffled silks and laces. 
With these things, part of their pretty feminine play, 
Sard could hear the whisper, that strange mother 
whisper, the whisper which is back of the building of 
the whole world, the whisper which is responsible for 
the best men and the best women, for all greatness and 
heroism and sometimes for the weakness and foolish¬ 
ness and decadence—The Mother-whisper. 

“We love Foddie, little Sard, don’t we? We aren’t 
afraid of him—he won’t send us to pwison.” Then 
over their own clasping had come the man’s bear hug 
and little laughs and screams from her pretty mother. 
Then Sard had always gone gravely and happily away 
to play. 

Dunstan returned from the kitchen with the air of 
news. “ Cook hath secured the main part of the 
breakfast booty, but thy maiden hath left—she an¬ 
swers not to her name in the scullery.” 

Miss Aurelia Bogart, the Judge’s sister, sighed 
deeply. “ Poor Dora, she never came in at all last 
night—she—I—you—well, she is taking this thing 
very hard—I suppose,” with another sigh, “ it is natu¬ 
ral.” 

Dunstan grinned. “You are right, Aunt Reely; 
right, delicate nun! It is not unnatural to be sad 
when your only brother is indicted for murder. So 
the fair nymph never came in at all last night? Queer 
about these women.” Dunstan winked at his sister, 


22 UNDER THE LAW 

then stared blankly into his fathers equally blank 
face. 

“ I say, Pop, are you really going to jug him for 
life, meaning the tow-headed murderer brother of our 
esteemed waitress ? ” 

The Judge turned. It might have been a veritable 
mask of implacability that met the young brown faun¬ 
like gaze turned toward it, except that plaster is ten¬ 
derer and softer than the human face devoid of the 
emotions of the human heart. A human face con¬ 
trolled by machine action is a terrible thing to see. 
The Judge had for years been a machine. 

Dunstan’s own face reddened and turned away. 
Sticking out his cup in the direction of the breakfast 
urn, the Judge remarked curtly, “ More sugar.” Then 
to his son, “ I rather fancy your sort of levity is not as 
amusing as you seem to think. It is merely underbred 
and oafish, a sort of nigger minstrel’s buffoonery.” 
The Judge paused a moment and then added coolly, 
“ As for what you wish to know, I am always ready 
to talk with you on any subject that is not pure med¬ 
dling on your part.” 

“Ah-” remarked Dunstan, with reverent aplomb. 

“ I heard the kitchen door bang; she’s back. ’Tis well; 
ring for hot muffins.” With a curious glint of the 
brown eyes, Dunstan looked back into the cold gaze 
fixed upon him. But pure animal joy cannot long 
survive the mortal ice of the glacial human spirit. 
The dark eyes fell and the youth murmured thought¬ 
fully, “and be hanged by the neck till you are dead” 

Then the Judge rose and after they had heard the 



BYLAWS 


23 


whine of his car swinging out of the drive, Sard and 
her brother looked at each other. Together they had 
noted the red eyes of the maid who, high-heeled of 
shoe and extravagant of dark hair, had replenished the 
muffins and brought back the coffee-urn. 

“ I don’t envy you your job, Sard/’ Dunstan rose, 
went to the glass and settled his tie. “ You were a 
gump not to go on with college and get a ‘ kayrear ’ 
like the other flappers. ‘ Father needs you ’—poof! 
He needs nothing but that ice-box he calls himself. 
By heck! ” Dunstan turned suddenly. “ Do you 
know I believe it is sentencing people to death and the 
Can that makes him like that? It—it does something 
to him, don’t you see ? ” But from his interest in the 
idea Dunstan went to concern for his sister. “Aunt 
Reely could run this joint. You go in for a career, 
Sard, and get out from under.” 

His sister laughed. “After all, he’s the only father 
we’ve got, Dunce. Maybe after I’ve been around 
home a bit—it seemed dreadful when Father wanted 
me here not to come—for him to have nothing that 
belonged to him.” Sard frowned a little. “ Don’t you 
think parents do an awful lot for us, and what do we 
do for them? Look at poor little mother. I used to 
visit for months at a time and leave her. She must 
have been lonely—she never said so—and then those 

two years at college and then—she went-” 

Sard’s eyes widened with the sense of what those 
lonely months had been—of the companionship she 
herself had lost. 

“ Well,” Dunstan loomed over her gloomily, 



24 UNDER THE LAW 

“ you’ll turn into an old maid, a wall flower, a sort of 
solemn crow.” He stood on his heels, hands in his 
pockets, surveying her. “ It’s all of a piece,” he said 
fretfully. “ You took down those bally chromos of 
Paw’s and you got pretty chintz for the chairs and put 
around bright candles—and he hated it. You begged 
him to let you cut windows into the hall and he 
squashed you. You can’t get sun and joy into this 
house, and you can’t get sun and human warmth into 
that jellyfish.” With a sudden squirm Dunstan struck 
a match. “ Oh, he’s so plaguy sure,” he growled. 
“ Law ? law ?—a lot of stuff in books brought down 
from the funny old bigwigs in England—all scared of 
their king; all hanging on to rotten things they called 
‘ precedents ’ for fear somebody would get something 
away from them; charters, burning of witches, dun¬ 
geons, strait-jackets, ducking-stools; Father belongs 
to those days! Well,” the young fellow turned upon 
his sister fiercely, “ they know no better, but you and 
I do know better. We belong to a different age, and 
we sit here comfortable and happy while our smug 
parent does for a young fellow, a young blood-and- 
bone man, full of grit and sap and dreams, a fellow 
that could sail a boat and cut down a tree! We send 
him to a filthy, smelly hell of a prison with a lot of 
awful men! ” Dunstan stopped. “ I went through 
State prison once, and the smell of it alone would rot 
a man’s soul—keep him hating good forever—you 
realize it? A curly-headed fellow, a man younger 
than I! ” 

The girl sitting soberly behind the silver coffee-um 


BY-LAWS 


25 


looked wistfully at her brother. Dunstan’s brown 
face was long, and his ears just a trifle pointed like a 
faun’s; his voice was young and crackling, like a 
tongue of young flame trying to push up through 
heaped-up brush. He smoked silently, staring down 
at his sister. “ It’s good-bye for him,” he said slowly, 
“ good-bye to green trees and swimming in the pools 
and climbing mountains and hearing a girl’s voice. 
Oh! to just being a man! Good-bye forever to every¬ 
thing but smells and rats and the minds of decayed 
men and we—you, Sard, and my father are doing 
this thing.” 

Dunstan suddenly pushed back a chair. “ Drat 
parents! ” he said fiercely, “ drat law, drat the sys¬ 
tem,” then he laughed. “Aunt Reely, don’t shudder; 
if a man on the stage talked that way, you’d think it 
was lovely. Did you see my tennis racket ? ” de¬ 
manded Dunstan in his usual voice. “ Oh, I guess I 
jammed it in the rack of the car. Well, so long; don’t 
grieve for me if I don’t turn up for lunch. I guess 
I’ll mess with Prudy Anterp and her bunch.” 

Sard and her aunt watched the light reedy figure 
swing around the little footpath to the garage, and in 
a few minutes Dunstan’s car had glided out of sight. 


CHAPTER IV 


OTHER LAWS 

Two years of college had done little to affect Sard 
Bogart’s life. True, those two years she had trodden 
the athletic-social paths of the American academic 
experience gaily, then the death of her mother called 
her home. Her father’s appeal made on the stark, 
lonely night after the funeral had created circum¬ 
stances she had met four-square. From that time on, 
Sard, with youthful heroism, had seen her life cut out 
for her. She was to run the home and “ keep things 
bright ” for her father. 

There was also the Judge's sister, Miss Aurelia, of 
the age always in conjecture, and of a curious beauty 
that made poetry of an otherwise ineffective person¬ 
ality. Miss Aurelia’s small head was covered with 
swathes of vital auburn hair, her delicate skin had 
porcelain pinks and whites, and her soft eyes and slim 
frame were of a curious suggestive quality that only 
needed force and will to make her a vibrant, seductive 
human creature. But this force and will were lack¬ 
ing. Miss Aurelia had been reared altogether on the 
“ ladylike ” plan. So while there was no look of 
wear and tear on her, no wrinkles on her face, no gray 
in her hair, and while her teeth were even, with the 
effect of crowding her pursy mouth, yet all these signs 
and colors of her spoke of untried, untested things; 

26 


OTHER LAWS 


27 


there was an eternal insecurity in her rabbity chin, her 
soft apologetic voice, the tentatives of her conversa¬ 
tional method. 

It was said in the village that Miss Aurelia “ pre¬ 
sided ” over her brother’s house, and that Sard “ ran ” 
it. However, there was no friction between the two. 
Sard accepted Miss Aurelia with the same devotion 
that she tended her mother’s giant fuchsia, an unnec¬ 
essary trellised crime of thousands of purple and red 
flowers, and refrained from sending away the chromos 
that her father loved. 

“ The—er—telephone, my dear/* Miss Aurelia came 
softly up to Sard’s tower room, “ sorry to call you 
but the—er—person—long distance—don’t you ever 
find it confusing?—I—they—she—the operator.” 

“ Did you get the name ? ” asked Sard. “ Is it 
Minga Gerould?” 

Miss Aurelia wondered if it was, paused, hesitated, 
then, “ Your curtains certainly do need freshening. I 
never noticed it before. Yes, I think it may be Minga. 
She—it—sounded husky, long distance, perhaps, I— 
they seldom speak distinctly; the—er—operator was 
extraordinarily uncivil,”—Miss Reely pursed her rab¬ 
bity mouth, “ She—I ” 

“ Thanks, Aunt Reely, yes, the curtains do need 
laundering.” Sard was out of the room and down the 
stairs, the receiver at her ear. “ Minga! you rascal! 
Well, I am glad! Why didn’t you write me, you little 

trimmer- No, ma’am, I did not—did you? Was 

it nice? No, but I saw Cynthia and Gertrude, they’re 
back, bobbed hair and golf-sticks, bloom of youth is 




28 


UNDER THE LAW 


their line this year. What are you laughing at? 
No—is he?—to Cora Bland? Wasn’t that like Cora 
—she’s going to finish? I wish I were—why? Oh, 
that’ll keep! Well, Cora is a good all ’round sport, 
don’t you think? She’ll make Alpha, you see if she 

doesn’t- What? Oh, Minga, don’t ring off! 

That’s so, of course you have to pack; all right then— 
see you to-night—so glad you are coming, don’t for¬ 
get to sit on the right-hand side of the train coming 
up, the river’s wonderful as you come over the hill. 
Bye-bye.” 

Sard, smiling, hung up the receiver. Not until this, 
the first visit of a college pal since her mother’s death, 
had she felt her hunger for real companionship. Now 
as she had done the first day she had left off her sim¬ 
ple mourning, she looked up at the portrait of her 
mother hanging in the hall. She kissed her hand to 
that curly, ear-ringed little lady. “ Dear little dead 
Mother,” said Sard tenderly. “ Dear little dead 
Mother! ” Instinctively she thought about the 
mothers of the other girls of the town. Mrs. Bradon, 
Cynthia’s mother, fat, stupid and conventional. Ger¬ 
trude’s mother, a hard practical woman with ambi¬ 
tions, the other mothers as Sard knew them seemed 
too girlish, crude, trivial, beside the little soft, curly, 
ear-ringed lady that Sard had only just begun to look 
at with woman eyes. “ Would we have gotten on. 
Mother dear, would we?” whispered Sard, wistfully. 
“ The other girls don’t with their mothers.” 

Often Sard had been troubled by the guilty feeling 
that had her mother lived—well, there might not have 



OTHER LAWS 


29 


been so much comradeship between them. Sard, clad 
in her crisp, clean linen, with white low-cut shoes and 
the plain little pin at her trim collar, remembered with 
a sense of tender wonder all her mother’s little frip¬ 
peries and gewgaws, the chains, the laces, and little 
sets of jewelry and pins and dewdabs—how quickly 
two years of camp and college had taught one of how 
small account were these things! 

It needed tenderness and humor, even that of a 
very young girl, to get any real human life into a home 
like the Bogart home. It had a stodgy gloom of its 
own, a solemn, gloomy importance like the Judge’s 
step, his way of entering a room. The hall was dark, 
the wainscoting was dark, the ceilings were gummy 
with queer medallions and heavy, gemmy Georgian 
ornaments. Of late years there had been extra elec¬ 
tric lights put in the hall and a fireplace added to the 
living-room. These things gave a little cheer, as did 
the brass candlesticks with the soft tawny or mellow 
colored candles of Sard’s own choosing. There was 
distinguished silver in the dining-room and rows of 
heavenly blue and pink willow plates in the cupboards, 
just as there were graceful pieces of Majolica that 
burned their hot color into the dull respectability of 
the living and tea rooms, but these didn’t help much. 
Sard often shook her head over it all. She would 
turn away from her mother’s portrait to that of her 
father when a young man. The then unbearded face 
had a cold kind of virtue and strength, the uncovered 
mouth was prim and uncompromising. Could it be 
that Sard’s home had somehow taken its color from 


30 


UNDER TEE LAW 


that prim mouth, those hard gooseberry colored eyes ? 
The girl went slowly to a mirror over the large fire¬ 
place in the living-room. She pushed into the sun¬ 
light a vase full of daffodils, the better to see her own 
face. 

“ Funny! Where did you come from?” she asked 
the girl in the mirror, then softly, as if it were almost 
shameful to ask this question, “ What are your laws? ” 

The dark brown eyes looked wistfully at Sard; the 
forehead, a little high but square and harmonious, was 
swept with a wave of golden brown hair that crisped 
with vitality. The face seemed not interesting to the 
girl who questioned it. “ If I had more of Mother I 
could do things with Father,” she thought; “if I had 
little curls and earrings that shook, and dimples and 
queer little pudgy, patting hands. These do things to 
men—and women, too. I’ve seen it happen.” 

Sard thought of girls she knew, girls grown up 
with the new law, girls who finished at college, gradu¬ 
ated into doctors, lawyers, landscape gardeners, statis¬ 
ticians, economists. She looked at her own hands, 
long, thin, strong in the wrists, broadened and browned 
from tennis, boating and golf and driving of ma¬ 
chines. Sard, however, did not see in the mirror the 
thing that held the mystery of her life, the gift that 
would bring all that was rightfully hers to her. Do 
people ever think of this one gift of personality—for 
instance, the mouth that your pirate uncle sent down 
to you, that brought you the husband whom you had 
to leave to save your children; there is the shrug of 
your shoulders that came from your father’s side— 


OTHER LAWS 


31 


they did that, those people back of your father, and 
thus were able to throw off whole loads of care; that 
curved little finger goes with the sensitiveness of your 
mother’s family. You will be hurt and raw from 
things all your life with that finger! Yes, but you will 
be also exultant, drunken, wild with the quintessence 
of beauty, of the mystery and wonder that is all 
through the dull, daily grind. Sard’s unique gift was 
the poise of her head. Here was an imperious quality 
like that of a princess, here a curve of chin and back¬ 
set of the shoulders which was at the same time elastic 
and defiant and challenging. A girl like this, of in¬ 
domitable pride, curious nerve, wonders at some of the 
insults she receives from the thing this pride and 
nerve bring to life in others; also she is sometimes 
touched and wondering to find how others believe in 
and trust her. 

Oh! our ancestors!—brave, struggling, dreaming, 
pathetic ancestors! How you struggled, how you 
prayed and agonized, or were wild and wanton to send 
your strange gifts down to us! Here’s to you, Ances¬ 
tors, all of you! May we send you the best and 
bravest of you on and as far as we can, we will do the 
best we can with your gifts! 


CHAPTER V 


FOR LIFE 

The kitchen of the Bogart House was a pleasant 
room whose two doors opened out into a tidy latticed 
vegetable garden and whose outer arrangement of en¬ 
try and drying yard were of the “ save steps ” descrip¬ 
tion. Sard and her mother had worked these things 
out together, for at college, under one of the few 
strong souls and true brains that are still left un¬ 
martyred in American colleges, the girl had learned 
practical ideals of what should be the attitude of the 
employer to those who toil for his comfort. It was 
Sard who had the kitchen walls painted a sunshiny 
yellow, selected pretty rag rugs and placed book¬ 
shelves and good reading lights in the room; it was she 
who had insisted upon the lattices and ladyslippers and 
morning-glory vines. All with the sense of her own 
pleasure in them, though none of the people the Bo¬ 
garts employed seemed to care much for these things. 
The young daughter of the house soon began to realize 
that any bright sport-hat she herself wore, the set of 
her skirts, the make of her shoes, interested Dora and 
Maggie better than the books she tried to discuss with 
them. The name of Edith Cavell did not thrill them 
as did the name of the most recent screen actress. 
They cared only, it seemed, to catch up with the joy 
and pleasure of the life ahead of them. They seemed 

3 2 


FOR LIFE 33 

always to feel that the very stuff of life was arrayed 
against them—and sometimes they had reason. 

Now as the girl pushed aside the swinging door of 
the old-fashioned “ butler's pantry,” she was half pre¬ 
pared for the interrupted Irish sentences, the hot 
questions and answers. 

“Is it justice, I ask you; is it justice? To take 
him now—only nineteen. When he’s sort of wild and 
notional by nature and traps set for him? Maybe he 
dunnit—maybe he dunnit, but he keeps saying he ain’t 
done it. Oh, my God, my God, I don’t know.” 

The girl stood before the two women in the kitchen, 
the cook who, like Sard, wiped her hands and silently 
handed her the ordering list. 

“Thank you, Maggie,” said Sard; then, her fore¬ 
head drawing together, “ Dora, is there anything 
new ? ” 

The waitress with a gesture of dumb inability to 
answer, turned away, and Sard, no asperity in her 
voice, saw that it was to a resolutely turned back that 
she was speaking. 

“ She blames me, somehow,” the girl sighed, “ as if 
I could help it! ” 

“ Please put the north room to air. Miss Gerould 
arrives late in the afternoon—I think there isn’t a 
waste-paper basket in the room, so, Dora, will you 
hunt one up, and see to all the electric bulbs, won’t 

you ? And towels, the little embroidered ones-” 

Sard waited, half contemplating, thinking of reproof 
for the back turned so rudely and obstinately toward 
her direction, then she looked at the slight, slender fig- 



34 


UNDER THE LAW 

ure in its gray gown, the apron tied so carefully and 
delicately, the capless, pretty hair, and was conscious 
suddenly of someone young like herself. Through 
this veil of youth she saw what kind of sorrow it was 
that bowed the head of the woman standing there; 
something that she did not know was the most glorious 
passion in the world beat up through Sard's heart into 
her brain; it was the passion for humanity, for justice 
and fairness for all. “ Why should I be giving orders 
to her when she is suffering? Supposing Dunstan were 
in trouble and—and shame, and I had to take orders 

from the very people that- Dora—Dora," the 

girl persisted, “ is there nothing I can do ? ” 

There was no answer, only dry coughing sobs. The 
cook turned. “Ah, don't bother your head with it all, 
dear. It ain’t nothing to you—only, Gawd help the 
poor thing! Er course," said the cook somewhat bit¬ 
terly, “ we’re all under this law; the boy done wrong; 
he done awful, and they’ll be able to prove it against 
him, and your papa—well," the cook sighed, “ only 
he’s young, a rill smart curly-headed young feller 
and his chanst is gorn." 

Then cook, with a curious rising howl, turned away 
herself. 

Wiping her eyes, the young waitress stonily piling 
up the silver on the tray, let drop a fork. The girl 
stood there looking at it. Sard tried to comfort her. 

“ It—it is Human Sorrow," she said awkwardly. 
“ I think we—we don’t understand sorrow as well as 
we ought to and I am quite powerless but Miss 
Aurelia and I care, Dora." 



FOR LIFE 


35 


The girl said it tremulously; already she was feeling 
the awful gulf between a person who suffers tragedy 
and that other who stands by longing to help. Also 
Sard knew a kind of shame—for it seemed treachery 
to her father and the equity he maintained, to say 
more. What could words do ? It was Sard's first ex¬ 
perience of the great naked fact of human sorrow and 
shame; she knew that the only person who could help 
Dora would be someone who had been through a wave 
of tragedy like hers. 

“ Words,” thought Sard hotly, “ are disgusting. ‘ 
We bandy them about and pile them up like money. 
We exchange them like coin of the realm.” The 
young girl, clean and defiant of emotion as a young 
animal, had no mature power, that amazing power 
borne through sorrow and sympathy, the strange 
power of the healing touch, else she would have 
touched Dora’s bowed head, put a comforting hand on 
the heaving shoulder. She stood silent, then once 
more said, helplessly, “ Dora, don't you believe me, 
that I do truly care ? ” 

Suddenly there was a curious half shriek, the ter¬ 
rible leap of human emotion through the breaking dis¬ 
cipline of lips and eyes—“ Oh, I know you care- 

Oh, Miss Sard—but they’ll jug him just the same— 
for life—for life! His chanst is gorn.” 

Dora's voice then sank to a kind of moaning solilo¬ 
quy. “ Oh, yes, that's what they all tell me; he's 
killed a man, or they say he has ”—the woman shot a 
haggard look into the girl's face. “ I've thought and 
thought and I know from reading the papers and all 



36 


UNDER THE LAW 


that almost any rich man's son would get off/' she 
said it bitterly, “ but that isn’t it—it’s something else, 
it’s that he’s only done wrong once, and now he’s got 
to live and die with the worst—oh,” moaned Dora pas¬ 
sionately, “ they’d ought to be laws to save them that’s 
got wrong into them, not to smash ’em. For life, for 
life! ” 

No great poet could have crammed into one sen¬ 
tence the thing that the weeping girl crammed into 
these words—“ for life.” Gently Sard closed the 
door and, hardly knowing what she did, tiptoed back 
toward the front of the house. She looked out on the 
late spring foliage, on the tulips and Japanese maples 
a-quiver with June, on the purple fleur de lis and 
peonies, dewy with color against the long sparkling 
ribbon of the morning river . . . against all that 

virginal clean growth with its rapturous aspiration to¬ 
ward the sky that feeds it, the girl heard the poor 
human cry, “ For life —for life! ” 

So this was actually happening! Life, a smooth vel¬ 
vet delicious thing was going on in the front of Sard’s 
home—music, pleasure, ease and beauty, while in the 
back part of it life was labor and anguish and shame! 
This was the law under which Sard’s parents and their 
friends had lived contentedly, it was the law under 
which she was expected to live contentedly. “ I never 
will,” whispered the girl fiercely, “ I never, never will; 
these are not my laws, I am not 1 under ’ the law.” 

Sard, slowly leaving the kitchen, came upon her 
aunt. Miss Aurelia, with the finest and lightest of 
dusters, was performing various rituals with the legs 


FOR LIFE 


37 


of table and chairs; now she moved one thin hand in 
swirls over the piano top. “A piano collects dust so 
strangely/’ she explained, as if the piano were a sen¬ 
tient thing that made dust-collecting its object. “ I’ve 
always been so glad to do the dusting,” remarked Miss 
Aurelia for the hundredth time, “ he—your father, 
of course, never notices but she—we—not that I 
want to criticise your mother, that would be impos¬ 
sible, only she—we—at that time—that is to say—in 
any emergency I would naturally; of course, some 
servants were careful and others not. I had once,” 
said Miss Aurelia, with the air of beginning a new 
subject, “ I had an—an aunt,” she whispered the 

thing mysteriously, “ she—er—hated dust- Sard, 

you’re twisting your ring—you look—is anything 
wrong ? ” 

Sard, motioning toward the kitchen, spoke in a low 
voice. “Aunt Reely, that boy, Terence O’Brien, is 
Dora’s only brother; she helped educate him; there 
isn’t anyone but those two- Isn’t it too terrible ? ” 

Miss Aurelia lifted a lamp off the table, dusted 
where it had been and put it back again; in doing so 
the silk shade toppled and fell. Mbs Aurelia, frown¬ 
ing and gasping, treated the incident like a catas¬ 
trophe, something to be met with firmness and an in¬ 
take of breath. When she had solemnly adjusted all 
as it had been again, she took up the subject of dust. 
“ It’s the open fires,” she remarked gloomily; “ some¬ 
times I think we should never have—a land where 
there is no dust, that is how I always think of 
Heaven! Yes, Sard, I know that—er—she—he, of 




38 


UNDER THE LAW 


course, it was a regular murder, such as you read 
about, he is, you see, a criminal, my dear, and that, 
of course, makes you—me—us feel a natural revul¬ 
sion.” Miss Aurelia stood up; the sunlight fell upon 
her gown of a rather sentimental blue with white ruf¬ 
fles, her fair white skin was noticeable even in the 
bald morning light, her rabbity mouth somehow too 
full of teeth, paused unctuously, with drama on the 
subject in hand. 

Sard, strumming a few chords on the piano, looked 
thoughtfully at her aunt. “ Shall I bring in some of 
those big Japanese iris?” she asked. “ Minga’s com¬ 
ing to-night, did I tell you? I want things to look 
jolly. The old dear hasn’t been here since that holi¬ 
day week before Mother ”—Sard never could finish 
the sentence—“ Mother died. Do you suppose Fa¬ 
ther will let us have the small sedan altogether? 
Minga is used to her own car; she fusses with any 
machine they’ve got.” 

Something that had been hanging on Miss Aurelia’s 
mind hung there still; this slangy sort of talk, the 
planning for Minga Gerould's visit Aunt Aurelia 
hailed with delight. This was more as it should be, 
better than Sard’s behavior since she had remained 
home from college after her mother's death. It was 
the kind of thing, some of it, that Miss Aurelia had 
grown to believe in while she deprecated it. Ameri¬ 
can young girls, of course, came of a nobly material 
race, everyone avowed that America was very great 
and the fact of the young people having no manners 
and no respect for age and no morals and no loyalty 


FOR LIFE 


39 


to life—well, Miss Aurelia thought it was only the 
other countries who were jealous who said such 
things. American young girls came of a nobly mate¬ 
rial race. Americans were so practical, so anxious to 
get ahead—everyone seemed so anxious that the young 
people shouldn’t be high-brow. But then Sard had a 
queer, Miss Aurelia thought almost common, way of 
noticing servants and poor people, their troubles and 
all that. It wasn’t good or even religious to think too 
much. For instance, the new man on the place. Miss 
Aurelia didn’t think it quite nice or “ young” to be 
interested in him. Miss Aurelia had often spoken to 
a fat, calm friend, Mrs. Spoyd, about these things, and 
Mrs. Spoyd had sighed, “ I know what you mean, 
dear. Did you hear about the little Gringlon girl? 
Well, of course, it may not be true. I heard it from 
their dressmaker, but it seems she noticed everything 
and—er—was crazy for all kinds of information. No, 
dear, of course, Sard ought not to be noticing anything 
but a good time at her age. Girls should only be in¬ 
terested in a good time. They shouldn’t be interested 
in—er—unpleasant things.” 

So Miss Aurelia overlooked the slang. It was all 
right for Sard to be a little slangy; so much better 
than sitting up in that tower room and thinking about 
murderers. It would make her more “ popular ” to 
have Minga Gerould go to dances and such things 
with her. “America is a wonderful country,” said 
Miss Aurelia to herself, “ and I think it is our ‘ popu¬ 
larity.’ Have you ever noticed,” to Mrs. Spoyd, 
“ how awful it is for an American girl or man not to 


40 


UNDER THE LAW 


be popular ? Don’t you think that our great men like 
Theodore Roosevelt and—er—Barnum, are just as 
popular in Heaven as here? 

“ I think God meant us to be—er—popular, don’t 
you? Just see,” added Miss Aurelia with a flash of 
insight, “ how unpopular all of our statesmen have 
been who have been in any way unique or—er—un¬ 
usual. Americans, the good, patriotic kind, have al¬ 
ways been very popular.” 

“ Yes, I always feel so sorry for a young girl who 
isn’t popular,” purred Mrs. Spoyd. 

“ I wouldn’t worry about that boy, dear, now,” ad¬ 
vised Miss Aurelia, with all the mature effects of 
voice and manner of the person who is not truly 
grown up. We do all we can to make the prisoners 
what they should be, and I have heard that many 
tramps—er—like to go to prison.” She stood up, 
sighing. “ There—this room at last looks respect¬ 
able ; ” her narrow, rather smoky-dull eyes roved over 
Sard. “ Why don’t you put on your turquoise sweater 
and tarn, the pretty one with the blue pompom? I 
will look after everything. No, dear, I don’t think 
you’d better use the car without asking Brother.” 

“ Will you ask him ? ” said Sard shyly. 

“/ ask?” Miss Aurelia said nervously. “Why— 
you—he—I—don’t you think, Sard,”—with a kind of 
reproachful righteousness—“ don’t you think it ought 
to come from you, his daughter? Now I must see 
about the laundry.” 

Sard was accustomed to these cheerful little exits 
made with the bustling manner of one with much busi- 


FOR LIFE 


41 


ness on hand. When Miss Aurelia wanted to evade 

anything- Suddenly it flashed over the girl, 

“ Why, she’s always like that, she—she—never meets 
anything; she wouldn’t discuss it with me that morn¬ 
ing I tried to talk with her about Colter. She has 
pretended all along she didn’t know about Colter, and 
now, with Dora crying there, red-eyed while she serves 
the meals, she tried not to know that—why,” Sard’s 
eyes opened, “ I’m old, she’s young.” 

“I ought to be her aunt,” said the young girl to 
herself. “ I ought to be sending her in a picture hat 
with an organdy dress and blue sash to meet Minga.” 

The girl stood motionless in the center of the floor, 
thinking. When youth begins to think and to think 
clearly and hard with its brave young mind, it is time 
for the world to take notice—Sard frowning at the 
floor, spoke aloud: 

“ Yes—that’s living Under the Law,” she said 
slowly, “ I see what Dora meant; we live under a 
made law, we don’t build up on it, away from it, to a 
better law; we just live, cramped, confined, ignorant, 
stupid, under it—Under the Law, that’s it!!! ” Sard 
laughed a little wonderingly. “ I shall meet Minga 
this afternoon and we will go motoring and laughing 
over the country roads and Dunce will come home 
and we’ll all eat fudge and dance to the Victrola to¬ 
night, and one or two of the bunch will come in and 
we’ll play Rookie and Cheat and Toddle Top, and 
then at nine o’clock Minga will want a nut sundae, 
and we’ll all pile into a machine and slew around to 
Dingman’s and eat sundaes and then hoot along the 



42 


UNDER THE LAW 


roads until a tire pops and we think it time to go to 
bed, because under the law that is our privilege. 

“ But in that little top room Dora will wake up and 
think about her brother, who, she says, is Under the 

Law-” Sard looked out of the open house door 

toward the fleur de lis and the peonies, massed purple 
and crimson against the silver sparkle of the river. 
She stood gazing at the wealth and the shimmer of 
spring leaves. “ Why,” said Sard slowly, “ those 
laws were only made for people who haven’t grown 
up; surely,” said the girl to herself, “surely we were 
meant to bring out of them other, better laws; why,” 
said Sard, a deep light came into her long eyes with 
their straight clear brown, “ surely there are other 
Laws! We can build above the Law, we don’t need 
to stay Under the Law.” 



CHAPTER VI 
minga’s laws 

Minga arrived in a spasm of long thin legs, short 
skimpy skirt, a fluff of bobbed curls, a rather un¬ 
natural whiteness of face, lugging a suitcase, golf 
sticks and tennis racket with the independent ges¬ 
tures of an experienced baggagesmasher. It was an 
effect calculated to impress a girl's camp or a parcel 
of immigrants, but as that of the arrival of a maiden 
of eighteen summers at a quiet house in the little 
center of Willow Roads, it was hardly distinguished. 

The meeting of the two girls was a curious clinched 
clasp done technically and punctuated by gasps, long, 
over-emphasized kisses and such half-shrieked pro¬ 
tests as: “ Oh, you dear brute, you’re squeezing the 
life out of me—You silly old darned duck—Oh, 
Honey, isn’t this great ? ” Then they fell apart, and 
with mutual cool glance of appraisement took each 
other in. As they turned talking and went up the 
long stairs, Sard’s look was laughingly interrogative. 

“ Minga, you’ve bobbed your hair.” 

“ Yes, you like it? The Mede and Persian don’t! 
I had an awful row with the Mede, meaning Dad, 
but he came around, of course.” 

Sard looked lovingly at the little curly head; she 
felt of the thick knot at the back of her own young 

43 


44 UNDER THE LAW 

head and felt somehow old; she tossed it like an im¬ 
patient colt. 

“ It must feel nice.” 

“ It feels like October wind blowing over the pink 
heather,” Minga laughed; she passed an arm around 
the older girl. “ Let’s go up town and get yours done 
right away. What do you want with hammocks of 
long hair? Why, if Absalom had only had his hair 
bobbed, the whole Bible would have been changed.” 

The voices of the girls had a curious cadence of 
indolence, also a rising sense of potential shriek, yet 
they were not raucous. 

This was, however, merely cultivation that was un¬ 
conscious ; other girls of their age who copied their 
ways of wearing their sport-hats and “ rolled ” stock¬ 
ings had not attained to the cool middle register of 
these young tones, the pleasantly insistent quality of 
the aimless dialogue. Yet all their movements, rest¬ 
less and ungainly with curiously athletic emphasis, 
seemed to correspond to their sentences, over-stressed 
yet indifferent, while their young eyes, particularly 
Minga’s, under long-lashed, artificially penciled brows, 
had hardness and clearness under which lay an ever¬ 
lasting watchfulness. 

It is with this watchfulness that the youth of to¬ 
day betrays itself. Free from restrictions, from cares 
and responsibilities, it yet has within it the poten¬ 
tialities of these things. It unconsciously needs 
standards, longs for them and has them not; there¬ 
fore, it unconsciously is seeking these standards, if 
only in the wearing of clothes, in the foot work of 


MINGA’S LAWS 


45 


a tennis match, in new swimming strokes, in the use 
of new words. Poor little youth of to-day longing for 
values, saying with its strange wistful little face: 
“ Does she bob her hair ?—then, I’ll bob my hair. 
Does she drink?—well then, I’ll drink; does she sprawl 
over and maul her young men friends?—well, then 
I’ll sprawl and maul/’—Poor babies, not one of them 
strong enough to carve a path of his or her own, all 
led by the nose, trotting around after each other, all 
with hats, neckties, turned-down stockings, bathing 
suits, conventional stencils, voices and ignorance ex¬ 
actly alike. Pathetic, wistful, funny, hungry little 
American youth. 

At the head of the stairs stood Miss Bogart. “ My 
dear! ” she held out two hands to Minga, who reso¬ 
lutely seized them and with calm effect of mascu¬ 
linity, gripped them until the lady's mouth twitched 
with pain. 

“ This is nice," almost shrieked Miss Reely—she 
also tried to put her arms around the young form, but 
she might as well have tried to embrace the string of 
a toy balloon. Minga, wafting along, recited some 
sentences, with the rather easy-going cadence which 
for a better name might be called “ the chewing-gum 
accent." 

“ Awfully nice to see you, Miss Bogart; Mother 
and Father sent love. Isn’t this great, though? You 
and Sard were ducks to ask me. My faith, what a 
jolly room." Minga peered into the adjacent bath¬ 
room. “ Swell mirror, some towels; do I use these 
embroidered ones for cold cream ? " 


46 


UNDER THE LAW 


“ Did you notice the view, dear, coming over the 
hill—the river—the dogwoods ? ” asked Sard’s aunt 
complacently. 

“The—er—view-? Oh, yes, I remember now, 

Sard said something; was it where they built that 
new garage? Say, Sard, did you know that garage 
is a big thing, the nippiest thing along the Hudson 
River—this shore anyway? A lot of money went 
into it. I know, because Father coughed up a few 
shekels, to help the man out, you know, and he says 
they are piling up coin already. He’ll realize, all 
right! ” 

Miss Reely, rather ignored by the two girls, fussed 
about the room, settling a pillow sham, plumping up 
a cushion. She turned back to the new arrival, who, 
tossing her small provocative hat on the bed, turned 
with an anxious frown to the mirror. “ Girls,” an¬ 
nounced Minga, unfastening her wrist-watch, “ I’m 
pale.” From a small leather case in her pocketbook 
she produced a tiny golden box of color, dabbed a 
bit of it on each young cheek and as she stood talk¬ 
ing to her hostess calmly smoothed it in. Minga’s 
eyes, wide open, cool as purple morning-glories, sur¬ 
veyed them. She stood, a trim, insignificant little 
figure of modernity, suggesting nothing, giving prom¬ 
ise of nothing, dreaming of nothing, but curiously 
capable of anything and everything. 

Miss Aurelia, primming her mouth, turned to the 
door; she paused with the immemorial formula of the 
hostess. 

“ Dinner is announced at a quarter of seven, dear; 



MINGA’S LAWS 


47 


will you let us know if you want anything?” Irres¬ 
olutely she drifted away; they heard the soft pat of 
her low-heeled slippers, the swish of her starched 
skirt, looked at each other and smiled. 

“Exactly the same! What?” Minga giggled. 
“ Does she still think it’s awful to say ‘Darn*?” Then, 
conscious of Sard’s restraint, “ Well, she’s a sweet old 
sport. I’d like to take her up in an airplane. Now,” 
apologetically, “ you know very well I think she’s a 
perfect dearrrrrr, so sort of picturesque and every¬ 
thing—where do you keep your hairpins ? ” 

It was part of the enigmatic expression of Minga 
that with bobbed hair she should demand hairpins with 
as anguished an intonation as a woman with long 
tresses. When Sard produced the box, she deftly 
pinned a pretty lock nearer to her cool deep-set eyes. 
“ It’s this rotten high forehead of mine,” she explained 
to her friend now perched in the window-seat watch¬ 
ing her. “ I’m determined I won’t be high-brow if I 
have to cut my head off to avoid it. Don’t you 
dread, somehow, becoming high-brow? It’s so unpop¬ 
ular—the men have always hated it, and now 
the women do. Do you remember Sara Findlay at 
college ? ” 

“ Sara Findlay,” they breathed the name through 
gusts of laughter—“ Sara Findlay; do you remember 
her room, books everywhere, and her awful spectacles, 
and the way she haunted the library and the solemn 
look she turned on you when you asked her anything? 
I remember one question we doped out, ‘ Sara, how 
do you define the infinite ? ’ ” 


48 


UNDER THE LAW 


“ Sara’s engaged,” said Sard, “ married, for all I 
know; did you hear about it ? ” 

Minga turned a face of incredulous horror. Mar¬ 
riage as she viewed it was the device of screen ac¬ 
tresses and various feature fans to change horizons; 
when things got a little monotonous or there was a 
chance of improving finance, one married. “ That 
high-brow wench, not a bit of pep, not a rag of style 
—to who ? ” 

“ To whom, did you say ? ” said Sard mischievously. 
The other girl, falling heavily upon the divan, now 
buried her curly head in Sard’s lap. 

“To who,” she repeated carelessly—“ I won’t say 
it right; why should I? If the Prince of Wales or 
Charlie Chaplin said * to who ’ for a few weeks, we’d 
all follow suit. Who invented grammar, anyway ? ” 
Minga stretched herself, laughing up into her friend’s 
face. 

“Ouf! Isn’t this like the old times? You, the 
stuck-up grammarian—me, the gypsy vagabond. 
Woof, what an awful thing it must be to be ‘ the 
Judge’s daughter ’ in a little place like ‘ Willows-on- 
the-Hudson.’ ” 

Sard laughed a little; her face grew grave. “ It’s 
lots of troublous things to be the Judge’s daughter, 
I know that,” then swiftly, as if something occurred 
to her, “ Minga, will you do something for me? ” 

“Yep,” yawned the recumbent Minga; “all right; 
anything that doesn’t interfere with my present posi¬ 
tion. Sard, do you think my nails are nicer this 
year ? ” she held up a very delicately tinted row of 


MINGA’S LAW ,Sf 


49 


little curved shelly fingers. “ In spite of golf,” said 
Minga, “ I think that’s a sweet attractive little hand, 
don’t you ? ” The fact that Sard had asked her to 
do something seemed to her unimportant, and she 
went on—“Notice anything?” She waved a very 
pretty ring on the slender finger. 

“ Minga—you’re not,” now it was Sard who was 
really breathless, her brown eyes shimmered with 
light. 

“ Engaged, darrrrrling,” drawled Minga. “ Yep, to 
the most idiotic little Willy you can imagine. A per¬ 
fect lady, Tawny Troop, you know Troop, the big 
moving-picture man? We’re all crazy about Tawny, 
he's such a fool—and dance—he dances like a bubble 
on the fountain. Papa Troop is worth oodles, so they 
say. Mother, the Persian, doesn’t know it—yet; Fa¬ 
ther, the Mede—well, I guess we’d better postpone 
that! ” 

Something careless and contemptuous in Minga's 
voice kept Sard from asking any of the questions that 
flew to her lips. She caught the little hand and ex¬ 
amined the ring. “ Why, it’s exquisite,” she breathed. 
“ These are brown diamonds, aren’t they, and pearls ? 
Oh! ” The fairy beauty of the thing moved her. 

“ You see, Ducky, another girl picked it out—my 
predecessor.” Minga threw out the word with a curi¬ 
ously mature drawl. She yawned, raised up her head, 
reached out for a handglass and examined her pretty 
teeth in the mirror. Suddenly she rose, her figure, 
slender and reedy, bent backward and did a few 
striding, strutting steps of a modern dance, humming 


50 UNDER THE LAW 

the while with curious catlike nasal tremolo a popu¬ 
lar air. 

“ Do you know this step—to the Paradise whis¬ 
tle and ukulele and that new instrument, the Shiver- 
skin, it’s just great.” Around the room strode Minga, 
solemnly expounding the simple steps. “ You like 
my ring,” hummed Minga, “ well, Tawny's first girl 
picked it out. I saw it on her aristocratic hand and I 
had to have it; also, you see, I needed Tawny to dance 
with—he goes my gait—she hated to let him go; Sard, 
that girl is a Moth, she eats men, eats 'em alive, but 
I snitched this one,” Minga giggled. “ Tawny’s com¬ 
ing out for your first spring dance at the Club while 
I’m here, but it’s not announced,” warned Minga, 
“ so don’t talk bassinets.” 

It was the old Minga, only, Sard could not keep 
herself from admitting this; more so, and well, there 
really need not have been any more of the original 
Minga. Sard, who was exactly a year older than her 
friend, felt somehow centuries older. Also she had 
to confess again as she had confessed to herself be¬ 
fore, there was something in Minga that both shamed 
and hurt, while it fascinated. However, with all the 
hunger of a lonely girl for a chum, Sard readily over¬ 
looked jarring things. She reached out and drew 
Minga to her, hanging an arm over the thin little 
shoulder. Minga took it all coolly. “Are you letting 
yourself get fat, Sard?” she criticised. Then added 
caressingly, “ Poor solemn Sard, we’ve got to whoop 
things up for you now I’m here. What? I mean it! 
Can’t we run up a few men and some jazz and stuff 


MINGA’S LAWS 


51 


on the telephone for to-night? Would Judgie and 
Aunt Reely care? Who does your jazz this year? 
We’ve got an angel band home, three cornets, a para¬ 
dise whistle and a drum, it’s divine—well? Wait till 
I get hold of that old Dunce,” said Minga, “ I’ll choke 
all the news out of him. My hat—there comes your 
father’s car around the drive, and I haven’t got on 
evening duds! What do you wear for night-eats? 
Will Judgie care if I go down as I am? ” 

This was Sard’s chance. She kept her arm around 
the restless, pacing little figure. “ Minga, will you do 
something for me? Put on your prettiest dress, that 
rose-colored one, talk music to Father, let him play 
his new records for you.” Minga made a face, but 
Sard was insistent. “ Get him to tell you about Ter¬ 
ence O'Brien—only don’t you start the subject, Minga 
—and—and—and ask him if he is pleased with the 
new man on the place.” 

Then Sard, at a loss just how to drill her impulsive 
guest, stared at Minga thoughtfully, frowning. “ No, 
don’t ask him that,” she said. “ I’ve changed my mind, 
don’t ask him that.” 

Then said Minga, “ I’m to ask him about Terence 
O’Brien without his knowing it ? ” 

“ Yes, his sister works here.” 

“ Terence O’Brien,” repeated Minga, “ who—oh, 
yes, that fellow that killed the old man, ran away with 
the money, did it all just like a movie—awfully ex¬ 
citing ! My gracious! ” Minga was awed. 

Sard nodded. “ Hush, his sister is our waitress, 
and she—oh, it’s pretty dreadful to see her. Father 


52 


UNDER THE LAW 


thinks he’s just a criminal, but don’t you see, Minga, 
he’s only a boy, only eighteen.” 

Minga looked very cold and decided. The two 
spots of color stood out high on her little sobered 
face. 

“ But a murderer,” said she solemnly. “ He must 
pay the penalty.” Minga pronounced the word 
“ peenulty,” but her dignity was superb. She was very 
sure about justice as she was very sure about patriot¬ 
ism. If you did wrong you must not be found out, 
if you cared for your country you must say so very 
loudly with strong dramatic effects; the idea of car¬ 
ing for one’s country to the extent of having a better 
kind of women and men live in it had not occurred 
to Minga. It does not occur to the men and women 
Mingas of this world. But they are very sure 
of their “ patriotism.” They have quite a little 
patriotic strut and they imagine patriotism to consist in 
a long hate of some other nation. And that it is 
based forever and ever on the machinery of kill¬ 
ing. 

“ Minga,” said Sard passionately, “ do you and I 
always do right? Isn’t it our ease and good fortune 
that keep continually pulling us back from very wrong 
things? How about that time on the bacon-bat up 
at Divens Lake when we stole the firewood and the 
corn, did we pay any fines—did the county follow us 
up? Just a private letter to the faculty and old Pressy 
and the Dean talking to us and that was all—yet,” 
Sard looked thoughtfully out of the window, “ that 
was crime, stealing and trespassing, but we are so 


MINGA’S LAWS 53 

pampered and petted and taken care of that we— 
well, we don’t need to murder.” 

“ Oh, don’t we need to murder ? Well, I can tell 
you, Sard Bogart, that I need to murder Marjorie 
Atboon every time I look at her.” Minga’s face was 
injured. “ Her father gave her a new car if she’d 
stop smoking. Well, Marjorie has the car.” Minga 
paused and remarked drily, “ Her bedroom smells 
queerly—she says she likes lots of air, she burns a 
good deal of incense, but you ought to see the car, 
lovely long thing, eight-cylinder, blue, cooooooooly— 
oilllly—oily. Oh! how a good machine turns your 
dark little world to white velvet! ” 

Sard giggled. “ Minga, you always make me 
laugh,” she protested, “ when I’m most in earnest 
you’re crazy and dreadful, but you’re an everlasting 
dear.” 

Minga whirled them both about the pretty cre- 
tonned room. 

'‘You know you love it,” she chanted, “you know 
you love it, you’ve been having too much Aunt 
Aurelley.” Minga putting her arms akimbo swayed 
neatly pumped feet back and forth. “ Did you see 
Auntie stare at my rouge ? ” she whispered. “ She 
knows the worst now, doesn’t she, Sard? She knows 
I know there ain’t no Santa Claus.” With a burst of 
laughter, Minga released her friend. “ Wait till I 
get a bath.” She ripped off her little frilled blouse, 
her short skirt fell to the floor. Minga stood a pretty 
figure in dark knickers and white chemise. “ For the 
tub! ” she chanted, and dove into the bathroom. 


54 


UNDER THE LAW 


Amid the gushing of the faucet, Sard saw the little 
figure stripped and dancing in the white porcelain 
bath. 

“ Stop in on your way to the dining-car,” called 
Minga. 


CHAPTER VII 


THE ORGAN BUILDER’S HOUSE 

The Hudson River has not only the opulence that 
Washington Irving portrayed, not only the swelling 
of soft hills and majesty of toppling mountains and 
slopes that spell fecundity of farmland but it has, 
along palisade and headland, another opulence. Un¬ 
der those mountains that throw down thunder-storms, 
and along the rocky walls climbed by winding roads 
magnificent homes testify to the imperialism that has 
not yet been cleansed from the heart of man. The 
instinct for choosing imposing sites for impressive 
homes would be difficult to trace to its beginning. 
Robber barons built their castles inaccessibly for very 
good reasons; the prelates’ palaces were on the hills 
that all might see and be reminded of Mother Church. 
The Roman Roads, unlike the furtive sunken roads 
of the cavemen, were built high because of fearless¬ 
ness and pride. But the American who builds his 
home, or one of his homes, on the Hudson does not 
do so just because he longs to feast his eyes on 
sumptuous natural terrace and broad natural water¬ 
way; he does so because in his instinctive choice of 
surroundings, he selects an expressive background for 
his own dignity and his own importance. 

All night long the great steamers of the Hudson 
River glide majestically up and down, the long white 

55 


56 


UNDER THE LAW 


fingers of their search-lights pointing to this and that 
lordly residence. The Oil King, the Copper King, 
the Pill King, and the Shoe King, whose white pal¬ 
aces and miles of stocked and fruited domain are 
gated and avenued away from the public, are silently 
indicated to such humble travelers as care to look. 
One can hardly travel the Hudson River nowadays 
and worship the great Creator, for the great Creator 
is a little overshadowed by the aforesaid King of 
Commerce, the great Producer. But in spite of the 
sleepiness and lethargic atmosphere that the Dutch 
traditions have strangely imparted to the strings of 
villages, there are in certain moods superb freedoms 
and freshnesses along the Hudson. There are still 
spiritual emphasis and quests along red sandstone 
shores, where the green hemlocks gather. The sun¬ 
rises in the Westchester Hills are like black tents with 
banners streaming. The waters of the Tappan Zee 
are then a great glittering field of cloth of gold, and 
at sunset when the houses on the Irvington Hills are 
all ablaze with sunstruck window glass, the bold, black 
breasts of Palisades and Hook Mountain front the 
river like African slaves guarding some inner mystery 
of valley, some clean, unspoiled fastness of forest and 
field and stream. 

To a man who sat at his table in a bleak old wooden 
house high up on the western range, these night and 
morning scenes spelled only two things, the Human 
Will, as yet absorbed only in the passions of an ag¬ 
gressive aggrandizement, and the proud subservience 
of nature to the little schemes of men. Nature, ly- 


THE ORGAN BUILDER’S HOUSE 57 


ing down like a great beast of destiny, to let the little 
shapes and enterprises swarm and crowd over her! 
“ Only/’ thought Watts Shipman, “ only when the 
great beast starts to rise and take new positions, look 
out then, little shapes. Either you will be raised on 
some great mountain of Nature’s mysterious changes 
or you will slip into some new uncharted sea or who 
knows, you may spill altogether out of the 
world! ” 

It was this wistful attitude toward nature, the great 
mystery, the great Book of Worship and Wonder that 
had taken Watts Shipman from his clubs and cliques 
and corporations, away from success and “ putting it 
over ” and their accompanying shiftiness and mean¬ 
ness, and had taken him for the season of a summer 
into the country, to think. 

Yes, just that—“ to think,” was what he replied to 
complaining letters and telegrams—“ Watts, what are 
you doing, stuck up there on the rim of nowhere ? ” 
His confreres laughed at the curt answer “ Thinking.” 
For a lawyer so able, so successful, there could be no 
comment of “ queer ” or “crazy”; Watts' partners 
shrugged their shoulders and went on with the busi¬ 
ness which, as he had denied them telephone access, 
they had sometimes to refer to him by long night 
letters. “ Drat your thinking,” writes the senior part¬ 
ner, “don't I think?” To which came the teasing 
telegram by code, “ You don't think, you calculate.” 

Watts* house, planted high on the spur of the moun¬ 
tain a few miles above Willow Roads, the little Dutch 
village where Sard lived, had been owned by an or- 


58 


UNDER THE LAW 


gan builder about whom the Willow Roaders liked 
to say “ nobody knew anything.” The Willow 
Roaders, complacent in the usual village life where 
everyone thinks he knows “ everything about every¬ 
one ” disdained knowing anything about a mere organ 
builder. The house, surrounded as it was by hanging 
boulders and pine trees, looked gravely down on the 
big field of river and on all the little steeples and 
turrets and gingerbread conservativeness of Willow 
Roads. Watts liked to commune with the spirit of 
the man who had once lived here. 

“ I’ll bet he stole some notes out of the Dawn,” the 
man thought, “ and think of nights here—like last 
evening, with the hermit thrush and the sky gold 
through the trees. * The Organ Builder ’—I can just 
see him, a seedy chap, possibly with too many chil¬ 
dren, probably half starving, working up here with the 
village below curious and gossiping, thinking maybe 
an organ builder was immoral.” 

It was a soft yet cool spring night. The little 
frogs in mountain rain pools kept up a croaking like 
rusty wheels; the pungent smells of earth and leaf 
mould came through the window. Fire burned quietly 
and soft lamplight fell on books and rugs and flick¬ 
ered over the cast of the Winged Victory, over the 
dingy chimneypiece. Watts’ eyes, through the smoke 
of his pipe, went to this. “ Nice girl,” he grunted in 
approval, “ nice girl—afraid of nothing—ready for 
anything, yet somehow all woman, true to type but 
not crystallized by type.” The man, rising, walked up 
and down the rather bare room where one or two fine 


THE ORGAN BUILDER'S HOUSE 59 


rugs caught the warm fire colors. “ I can say this for 
the Greeks, they, themselves, fastened nothing upon 
civilization but healthy ideals for men and women; 
harvest making, home keeping, child bearing, strong 
bodies, imaginative minds, it wasn't until their 
aesthetics and the Roman plutocrats got hold of all 
they gave the world that their philosophies were de¬ 
based." The lawyer's eyes, sombre in strength and 
depth, looked fixedly at the gracious woman figure; 
he compared it with the figures on Fifth Avenue, 
tripping in affected coquettishness or striding in 
callous mannishness. “ Not clever of you, ladies, to 
find no middle path," he considered. “ Who made 
you as you are to-day, Paris—the war? That's what 
you and the newspapers and magazines say, but come 
now, didn’t you make yourselves? You wanted to be 
4 popular,' you want to be ‘ in ’ things, behold the 
result." Watts' mouth curled with slow mockery on 
his pipe. 

44 The Winged Victory didn't want to be popular," 
he decided. 44 She didn't want to be in things. 

“ She wanted to live. Who fastened the modern 
woman on us, anyway?" Watts demanded sternly of 
his dog. “ Why have we got to stand for her? ” The 
silken-haired, electric-muscled beast came over to him 
softly. Friar Tuck, with tail tossing, laid a devoted 
head on the brown golf-trousered knee. Watts 
tousled the long ears. “ Always the henchman, aren't 
you, you old brute—why do you play that game?” 
The lawyer looked long and questioningly into his 
dog’s eyes. 41 Why don't you get up and give me an 


60 


UNDER THE LAW 

order; how do you know I’m superior to you? You 
are probably equal to me.” 

He considered the bowl of his pipe then rubbed 
it on Friar Tuck’s head. 

“ Just as I suppose, if men only knew it, they could 
be equal to Christ and the angels. Say, look here.” 
Watts lifted the dog by his forefeet. He put the two 
forepaws against his breast. “ How do you know I’m 
superior to you ? Why do you play this game—do you 
just want to be * popular ’ with me ? ” 

Not to accept dogma—to be ready for the new 
light, to trim one’s mental sails for the breeze from 
a fresh quarter, it had given the great criminal lawyer 
a profound insight into the human heart, an almost 
awful power over the souls of men. Wastrel after 
wastrel had tried to look Watts Shipman in the eye, 
and had known that some strange God of Equity sat 
watchful in this man—that only in proportion to their 
actual guilt would they be dealt with. Men and 
women had broken down and told him all, only be¬ 
cause of the unendurable patience and remorseless 
gravity of his uncondemning gaze. He had fathered 
many a boy and stood many a woman on her own feet, 
and yet Life, the Great Mother, had held back from 
him what he, as human, knew must be the ultimate 
and only gift. Women had angled for Watts Ship- 
man because of his fame; they had tried to use him 
politically; they had trusted him, feared him and been 
penitent before him. No woman had ever loved him. 

Staring at the Victory, the man smoked silently. 


THE ORGAN BUILDER’S HOUSE 01 


Half ruefully he passed his hand over the russet head 
on his knee, he threw back his own great black-haired 
head with its dapple of white spots; he stretched his 
long limbs and his deep-lined humorous face sad¬ 
dened. “ Women want to play,” he said softly, “ un¬ 
certain, funny little things, they want to play ”—ten¬ 
derly, “ and, not necessarily, to play fair—and I’m 
no plaything, although,” he waved his pipe toward 
the bas-relief over the fire piece, “ I could play with 
you, Miss Victory.” 

The word play made him think of something; push¬ 
ing away the dog, Watts rose and went to a table 
drawer, taking out, with a smile, a little envelope 
with " Pudge ” scrawled on it. The lawyer, still smil¬ 
ing, slid out the contents, two Indian arrow-heads, one 
white, the other gray flint. Thoughtfully he turned 
them over in his large palm. “ Poor good little In¬ 
dians,” he murmured, “ we're still teaching our chil¬ 
dren that you were devils, aren't we? Aren't we 
funny? We rather owe you an apology, you strange, 
mysterious men who never knew fulfilment—who 
ranged these Hudson River shores and thronged New 
Jersey and New England and were mighty hunters 
and happy until you came up against the white man 
and gunpowder and tobacco and whiskey! Well ”— 
Watts chuckled, “ Pudgy shan’t be prejudiced. I'll 
write you a good character for him.” 

Knocking his pipe out, laying it tenderly on the 
mantel, the big man sprawled like a schoolboy over 
the table writing in long hand the letter that was to 
accompany the arrow-heads. 


62 


UNDER THE LAW 


“ Dear Pudge—How are you ? What are you doing, 
helping Mother or raising the roof with noise and 
destruction. How are the guinea pigs ? I often think 
of them. Well, Pudge, I rather hope you are helping 
Mother a lot, because she’s such a good friend of 
yours and mine and she looks so pretty and seems so 
wise, though perhaps you and I are sometimes wiser. 
I’m sending you two arrow-heads I found in a field 
up North in Rockland County. I was fishing up near 
the Ramapo Mountains where the stone walls run 
like great serpents up and down the hills. There’s a 
lot of history lying around loose near here. Major 
Andre and Washington and the Dutch and the In¬ 
dians. I’ll show you these places some day. The 
Indians, to my way of thinking, were fine fellows. 
They took long steps when they walked and knew 
how to set traps and hunt and fish, and they were 
for the most part real religious men. But men who 
knew how to make war just to get more money, came 
and took their land away from them, and then the 
Indians turned naughty the way you and I do some¬ 
times, Pudge. My! my! how they tore around and 
howled and took scalps, which were not nice to keep. 
No gentleman would ever scalp a lady, it is so uncom¬ 
fortable, and yet these Indians scalped many ladies! 

“ It’s a pity the Indians were bad and forgot their 
manners, for if they could have remembered to be 
polite and gentlemanly they could have stayed here 
and they would have been the real Americans and 
you and I would have probably tried to imitate them 
and never used anything but wampum, which means 
shells; same as money to buy ice-cream cones with. 
I think it would have been a heap more sensible if the 
white man had made lasting friends of the Indians 
and learned a lot of things that the Indians knew but 
which the white men have since been too stupid to 
learn. But you see, the white men had a new machine 


THE ORGAN BUILDER’S HOUSE 63 


called a ‘ gun/ and there was nothing to do with it 
but shoot it at somebody, and that made trouble. 
And the Indians, eager to learn, got guns too, and 
thought it was funny to point them at people. And 
their guns went off all right and there was the dickens 
to pay. Machines are nice things, Pudgy, but the 
men who make the machines must be sure to have 
their minds go ahead of the machines, or some day 
the machines will just get up and smash the world. 

“ Good-night, Pudgy, old chap—I wish you could 
hear all the funny sounds up on this mountain. Friar 
Tuck smells, besides hearing; he reads the night with 
his nose, the same way we would read a book—and 
he smells out such stories! Here are the arrow-heads; 
Pm sending them to you as if you were my own little 
boy, for see, Pudge—big man as I am, I have no little 
boy of my own—and that sometimes happens to big 
men. . . 

Suddenly the man's head dropped. The pen rolled 
to the floor, and Friar Tuck nosed at it a moment then 
tucked his head into his folded paws. Watts Shipman 
sat at the table, his own face buried in his arms. 


CHAPTER VIII 


TRAITS 

The first evening at the Bogarts’ was a trying one 
for Minga. Her life, the restless, high-strung, half- 
bred and wholly careless life of her age, had kept her 
taut as a little bowstring for sensation. It was a 
life formed, not so much on its own desires, as on 
highly colored superficial presentments in the moving 
pictures and theatre posters, also on those remarkably 
insinuating sheets, the “ Society ” Fashion Magazines, 
where the cut of one’s coat and the number of one’s 
pockets are prophesied between photographs of the 
important Mrs. So-and-So, or the gossiping and not 
too scrupulous Madame X. 

The rather uninspired family dinner ended amid 
the soft perfunctory observances of Miss Aurelia, 
punctuating the indifferent curt ejaculations of the 
young people and the moody silence of the Judge; 
then Minga took a hand. She sat at the table hum¬ 
ming a little air. “ Know that ? ” she inquired of 
Dunstan; “ that’s ‘ Don’t take off another thing, Polly, 
my dear.’ Piggy Purse-proud sings it in 4 The Other 
Pair of Stockings.’ ” 

These statements were received in silence. Sard 
and Dunstan, mindful of the Judge’s preferences in 
dinner conversation, looked askance at each other, but 
Minga glanced brightly around the table. To this 

64 


TRAITS 


65 


young person there were no inhibitions, no reserves; 
above all, she was no respecter of persons. A man 
who had just completed a new up-to-date garage or 
aeroplane would win her casual interest, but a mere 
upholder of the laws of the country seemed to her 
hardly to have outline. Curiously enough, however, 
her insouciance and matter-of-fact pertness sometimes 
reached to that buried stream of human sensation that 
underlay the granite of Bogart’s surface. As he 
looked at the little figure, now rising from the table, 
he noted the color of her dress and spoke of it. 

“ Let me see, that’s rose color, isn’t it ? ” remarked 
the Judge, stiffly. His wrinkled square-nailed hand 
was on the back of the chair, and his eyes, gooseberry 
and hard, yet had the sort of deference a man gives 
some charming face and figure that refreshes him. 
Minga’s head, bent back, looked coolly up into his 
face. 

“ That color, Judgie ”—it was her absurd intimate 
title for him—“ that color is called ‘ Sauce Box.’ ” 

“ Well named.” The Judge had for a second a glint 
in his eyes. 

“ Isn’t it ? ” asked Minga. She turned her bobbed 
head with the lively shake of a young animal and 
asked suavely: “ Now what, for instance, is the name 
of the cloth of your coat? ” 

“ Ha! ” . . . Dunstan, prowling about, look¬ 

ing for cigarettes, upset a pile of books and arrested 
a plundering hand. He winked at Sard over Minga’s 
unconscious head, saying meanwhile plaintively, 
“ Why can’t I find any matches ? This family sinks 


66 


UNDER THE LAW 


lower every day! ” Dunstan watched to see how his 
father was taking Minga’s innocent question. 

“ What kind of cloth does a Chief Justice wear, 
anyhow; something impenetrable, I suppose, calcu¬ 
lated to endure, impervious to shouts and howls and 
woman’s tears,” he ventured. 

Miss Aurelia, waving the maid with the coffee serv¬ 
ice out on the western veranda, looked at her nephew 
approvingly. “ That’s a very interesting idea of 
yours, Dunstan.” The timid lady, intent on keeping 
the conversation in a calm backwater, went on to 
supply that as nearly as she could remember there 
was no mention of “ the cloth ” judicially, but only for 
the clergy, and when one thought of it, went on the 
rising muffled voice, serenely unconscious—“ The 
coats of the clergy were blacker and smoother and— 
er—more dignified than anyone’s else—I’ve often been 
struck by it at weddings—and—er—funerals,” said 
Miss Aurelia. 

“ I shall look for it at the next—er—execution,” 
said Dunstan as he rolled his eyes at Minga. 

“ Now Bishop Cravanette while dining here wore a 
velvet Oxford coat, I remember,” Miss Aurelia 
thrilled to her topic, “ he dined here—it was at the 
time of the laying of the corner-stone of the—er— 
church—they—he ” 

Dunstan, winding a long arm around Sard’s neck, 
another around Minga’s shoulders, reeled the two 
girls out of the room. “ She’s off, Bishop Crava¬ 
nette ! ” he murmured. “ That means the rest of the 
evening; all on your account, Minga, unless some- 



TRAITS 


67 


body chokes her. Bishop Cravanette,” Dunstan’s 
mouth modeled on Miss Aurelia’s pursy one, too full 
of its white teeth. " Seems to me the most ideal man 
for his—er—very high calling. His wife less so. 
The qualifications of a bishop’s wife should be—er— 
she—he, I remember they—er—I had an aunt ” 

Sard put her hand over his mouth, but the boy 
murmured through his sister’s punishing fingers, 
“ Minga, get Aunt Reely to tell the story of Sard’s 
name to-night. Then that will be over! ” 

Sard took his cigarette case out of his pocket. 
" That will do for you,” she lovingly tweaked his ear; 
"now light up, put up, shut up; you’re getting 
facetious at your own vulgarity, as Father says.” 

But Dunstan, imitating Miss Aurelia’s fussy ways, 
was dusting off his chair preparatory to sitting down. 
In spite of his long, awkward, muscular form this 
imitation of soft settling and sighing was ludicrously 
exact. Dora, bringing in the coffee tray, put an end 
to it, however, and the Judge and Miss Reely joined 
the young people. Sard rose till her aunt and father 
were seated, but Minga and Dunstan coolly sat, the 
former smoking until the waitress disappeared. Then 
Minga, behind her curved hand, grew confidential. 
She leaned toward Judge Bogart like a woman of the 
world. 

" Tell me about that new murderer of yours,” she 
begged. She had forgotten Sard’s instructions " don’t 
you start the subject.” 

Miss Aurelia interrupted nervously. She waved 
the sugar tongs. 



G8 


UNDER THE LAW 


“ Two lumps, Minga, dear? ” 

“ I don't take coffee, thank you/* returned Minga 
imperturbably. She put her hand on the august knee 
of Sard's father. “ Tell me all about that murderer, 
Dora’s brother.” 

It was an unwritten law in the Bogarts' household 
that the affairs of his judicial calling should never be 
mentioned to the Judge. He took his cigar from his 
mouth and slowly turned his head; the hard old eyes, 
the mouth set in two gray lines under the crisply 
trimmed mustache, revealed the iron rigors of the 
human face set to the inexorable, for it was through 
the inexorable power of decision that the Judge had 
risen to his fame locally and abroad. These things 
suddenly confronted with that most amazing audacity, 
that marvelous magnet, the unwitting bold, clear-eyed 
face of woman-youth, softened perceptibly. The two 
gray lines of lip moved slightly. Minga's little pink 
cheeks, curly hair, her rosy dress, the little incon¬ 
sequent hand on the Judge’s knee, these things had a 
flavor and power, the depth of which the girl could 
not possibly guess. Yet Minga did most things very 
deliberately. Now she naughtily twisted her mouth at 
Sard. 

“ Ah, come on now, Judgie,” turning her quizzical 
head to one side. " You can't have all the fun of 
jugging bad boys. After all, you only represent the 
people—that's us—let us in on it!'' 

Dunstan, blowing smoke in the air, almost held his 
breath. Sard, staring, put down her coffee cup. They 
both saw the queer gleam come into the concentrated 


TRAITS 


69 


eyes. A big hand steely with golf came down hard 
on Minga’s indolent little fist. “ Young lady! ” said 
Judge Bogart, slowly and decisively, “ you ought to 
be spanked/’ 

“ Oh, brother,” purred Miss Reely, “ I don’t think 

—it doesn’t seem-” Then to Minga, “ Why, I 

am sure you didn’t mean—why, George—I don’t think 
you ever said a thing like that. I feel that Minga 
was only asking for information.” Sard and Dun- 
stan quivered with silent laughter; but the Judge rose 
in quick displeasure. Minga passed her hand slowly 
down his sleeve. “ Ah, Judgie, dear,” she pouted, “ I 
didn’t mean anything. I didn’t know that judges took 
the Hippocratic oath and everything.” One would 
have thought that there were tears of vexation and 
embarrassment in the girl’s voice, but she turned a 
naughty stare on Dunstan. " Well, your father is a 
crab, a perfect crab! ” Minga’s tone somehow had 
nothing that could be modernly recognized as rude¬ 
ness. It was merely spoiled privilege that made her 
snap her fingers decisively and look revengefully at 
the retreating judicial back—perhaps Judge Bogart 
felt what is true of the Mingas of this world, that 
they have an amazing power of removing the solemn 
humbug of prestige from its intrenchment and are 
therefore dangerous. The Judge heard the petulant, 
“ I’ll get even with you,” but he did not smile or turn 
the disapproving back, so the little guest turned rather 
drearily to Miss Aurelia. This sort of evening for 
Minga was incredibly dull; it must be enlivened in 
some way. Stifling a yawn, not too cleverly, Minga 



70 


UNDER THE LAW 


remarked: “ Dunstan says maybe you’ll tell us how 
Sard got her queer name.” 

Sard, herself, had followed her father into the li¬ 
brary to put records on his talking machine. The 
Judge’s favorite way of spending a spring evening 
was to deny all callers and to sit by the window in 
front of the square refrigerator-looking instrument 
while Sard, like a slave, drew forth and deposited the 
records of his choice. Through the windows of the 
unlighted room showed squares of black sky with 
one or two stars hanging. A young vine tapped 
against the wire netting or beckoned with leaf fingers. 
The Judge never looked at his daughter standing 
straight and ready for his signal of approval or dis¬ 
pleasure. She chose the more sentimental and ro¬ 
mantic of airs and sometimes when they pleased him, 
he softened; his eyes closed at the finale of La Son- 
nambula or Donna e Mobile; he would sometimes snort, 
clear his throat and say, “ Very pretty, very pretty.” 
Sard would smile a little, looking rather wistfully at 
him. Perhaps when her father heard this music he 
wandered down the paths of youth, paths of wistful¬ 
ness and wanting to do right, paths such as hers must 
be: what had been his laws ? What had at last made 
him this curt, severe, unapproachable man ? “ What 
were your laws. Father?” the girl almost whispered. 
** Did you always live under the law ? ” 

“ Very pretty—very pretty,” snapped the Judge. 
“ The best machines are accurate, that's the idea, 
accurate; no banging, tinpanning; accuracy, that's 
the test of music.” 


TRAITS 


71 


The girl, gravely obedient to him, listened to those 
comments. At college Sard had heard all the New 
Testament in modern music, the superb ranges, the 
exquisite far countries of sound and rhythm. For 
her the Russian compositions had spelled the awful 
darkness of a dark land, through which in splendid 
bursts came the hope of full golden wheat fields, the 
piteous tragic faces of a people longing to rise and 
walk from the shackles of years into their own souls* 
birthright. The Spanish gravity and witchery as of 
dancing lights in the mountains, the French stringing 
of water pearls and culling of moonlit flowers; the ex¬ 
quisite question of modern unresolved chords, or the 
striding rhythms and deep chests of the masculine 
Bach fugues. Frolicking rural joy of the old gigues 
and morrices and the sombre human pathos of old 
folk songs—the girl harking back over those rich im¬ 
memorial afternoons and evenings of the music at 
college, wondered at herself, putting on the records, 
setting the needles, half shrinking from the automatic 
preliminary whir. “ The heart bowed down with 
weight of woe/* she looked at the grizzled head of 
the man whose name she bore. Was his heart “ bowed 
down with weight of woe/* was there some sore spot 
in his heart where, if she might win, she might see 
him as he was in the old days of youth and his love; 
had he ever agonized, cared about the tragic in¬ 
justices of life? Or, did he just coddle a sense of 
personal loss and woe ? 

‘‘We love Foddie, don’t we, little Sard, we 
aren’t afraid of him? He won’t put us in 


72 


UNDER TEE LAW 


prison/’ the curious little sweet-smelling whispers 
came back to Sard; she felt the soft touch of curls on 
her face, all the flummery and subtle trappings of the 
lacy little mother. These people were Sard’s parents 
and yet they were lost to her, as remote as if they had 
both died! Over and over the longing had come to 
Sard to put her arms around her father’s neck and 
say, “ Are you thinking of her too—these days ? ” 
but she could as soon have put her arms around the 
kitchen chimney. 

On the east veranda as the moon rose the soft voice 
of Miss Aurelia was placidly relating: 

“ Yes, Sard's name is strange. Her father, how¬ 
ever, has allowed her to keep it—we—your mother, 
Dunstan—they, well, it was thought that your father 
preferred a boy, but afterward you—er—came, 
Dunstan, and that, of course-” 

“ Yes, of course,” drawled Minga. “ You—er— 
came, Dunstan.” The girl was delicately smoking, en¬ 
joying Miss Aurelia’s horror and considering the 
diamond on her engagement finger. It flickered in 
the moonlight like a wicked eye. Miss Aurelia some¬ 
what stiffly continued: 

“ Sardonyx was your mother’s favorite stone— 
she—er—wore the Sardonyx signet ring of an an¬ 
cestor.” 

“By Jove! you don’t say,” ejaculated Dunstan. 
He stuck his heels higher on the rail and struck a 
match; he leaned over the terrace to flick some ashes 
into a jardiniere. “ And so I suppose—at that time 
—because of that—she—he—I—er ” 




TRAITS 


73 


“ Stop it, you demon, stop it,” murmured Minga; 
“ you’ll spoil the whole thing; it’s wonderful, it’s like 
knitting, knit two, purl two, turn-” 

“ So that Mrs. Bogart,” recommenced Miss Aurelia 
with dignity, but being plunged into the enormous 
detail of her story, she floundered, helpless. “ So 
that after little Sard, the—er—baby, you know—er 
—came—Mrs. Bogart believing—that is—or rather 
having been told—er—no—well, having expected a 
boy—got the idea of not being able to choose an ap¬ 
propriate name for a girl—and in consequence— 
afterward you understand.” 

Dunstan and Minga helpfully nodded—“ after¬ 
ward ” they prompted! 

“ That is, when Sard was three days old, Mrs. 
Bogart suddenly said, that is, I have always under¬ 
stood that she said it suddenly—my brother would 
know accurately—she said, * She’s to be called Sar¬ 
donyx ’—‘ Sardonyx ’ like that.” 

“ Really,” drawled Minga. 

“ But Sardonyx was—er—quite masculine, as you 
see,” continued Miss Aurelia with zest; the narrator 
turned her face somewhat eagerly and the pursy 
mouth, too full of teeth, continued: “ This feminiza¬ 
tion of it was Mrs. Bogart’s own—quite original, we 
thought. She made it Sardonice, very clever, every¬ 
one said—there was no opposition. I remember,” 
added Miss Aurelia, “ that at that time, for certain 
reasons, they were anxious not to have the—er—brain 
—too active—and we—er—tried in every way to dis¬ 
tract her thought—but that is how Sard got her name 



74 


UNDER THE LAW 

* Sardonice ’—most unusual/’ concluded Miss Aurelia 
a trifle apologetically. 

“ Why, she could have been named Jezebel, under 
the circumstances,” remarked Dunstan. “ But—er— 
as it is—we—er—call her ‘ Sardine ’ for short.” The 
lad, lazily smoking, rolled one eye 'round on Minga. 

“ Dunstan-” reproved Miss Aurelia. 

“Really?” Minga drawled the easy little word 
again, then with some recollection of the archaic thing 
called “ manners,” “ Thanks ever so much, Miss 
Aurelia—I’m sure it was awfully clever of Mrs. Bo¬ 
gart; I always wondered how Sard got her name. 
Wouldn’t it be fun to have a lot of girls with names 
like that—Emerald, Diamond, Sapphire, Jade—I 
could have been the Jade,” remarked Minga with a 
demure chuckle. 

“ You’ve got your wish,” observed Dunstan with 
emphasis. “A little red Jade, what?” He finished 
his cigarette, lingeringly pinned down the butt, ex¬ 
tinguished it, then rose, stretching. “ Well,” with a 
look of sweet seriousness, “ I’m off to have a whack 
at those old conditions.” 

“ You mean you’re off to bed because you’re bored,” 
said Minga scornfully. “ You mean you’re going to 
work out poker hands.” 

“ Good-night, Polly Prunella,” the lad bent over and 
kissed the top fluff of curls. The girl reached out a 
punishing hand and he drew back, chuckling. “ You 
used to let me last year,” he explained. 

“ Say,” Minga demanded, boyishly, “ what do you 
think I am? You do that again and see what will 




TRAITS 


75 


happen. “ Bing ” with a heavy slap, the little rose- 
frocked figure pushed him backward. “ My jiu jitsu,” 
explained Minga modestly to the horrified Miss 
Aurelia. “ I took Self-Defense all last year—I could 
tackle any New York gunman with that special under¬ 
cut.” 

“ Dunstan! ” said Miss Aurelia, severely, to her 
nephew—“ how ungentlemanly. Never—never let me 
see you do such a thing again.” 

“ I won’t,” said Dunstan, penitently. He was look¬ 
ing at Minga with liking, friendly boyish eyes. “ I 
shan’t want to do it again, not just there. Hey, Minga, 
I’ll kiss you better next time, what ? ” 

“ Go to bed, you big Swede,” retorted that lady, 
but the little figure in rose-color now leaned over and 
patted Miss Aurelia’s hand. “ Do I seem awful ? ” 
she asked anxiously. “ Mother says I do; I don’t 
want you to dislike me—you don’t like my smoking? 
The Persian hates it! ” 

“ Oh, my dear,” breathed kind Miss Aurelia, “ I 
dislike you? But aren’t the girls nowadays very 
lacking in manners, smoking and all ? ” 

Minga consoled her. “ We have to act like this 
nowadays, you know; that’s why we don’t need chap¬ 
erones but, of course, there is a good deal of rough 
stuff if a boy doesn’t know you’re nice, and of course 
some girls aren’t. Now you take any stag line at any 
dance; sometimes the fellows get silly and, well, they 
drink sometimes and, believe me, that needs some 
handling.” Minga, head down, considered her slip¬ 
pers gravely. 


76 


UNDER THE LAW 


Miss Aurelia stared. . . . The — er — stag 

line—why, Sard never-” 

“ Oh—well,” Minga leaned her head back against 
the wall, her little feet beating time to the music 
within, “ Sard doesn’t go in so much for that kind of 
thing, all the boys really want to dance with her and 
she knows it and doesn’t hit it up and she won’t allow 
cut-ins and that kind of thing—but most of us like 
the excitement, the being grabbed, you know, and so 
the boys like to show each other what cavemen they 
are, and, well, they do get silly and rough-house and 
you have to handle them like a mother—I’ve grown 
old,” said Minga, in a burst of confidence, “ I’ve 
grown old just keeping some of these lads where they 
belong.” The girl rose and pecked at Miss Aurelia’s 
sagging cheek. “ Isn’t your hair lovely,” she ob¬ 
served, “ and what pretty feet you've got. Why don’t 
you get married ? ” 

“ My—dear ”—Miss Aurelia kept hold of the little 
brown hand and gasped, her eyes were wide with 
astonishment—“ at—er—my age ? ” 

“ Sure,” said Minga with conviction—“ you’re 
feminine and all that, you know—a lot of men stand 
for that still—take some old blase clubman and stuff 
him into a husband.” 

Miss Aurelia, stunned, let go of the hand; she was 
as one paralyzed. 

“ Nighty night,” said Minga lightly. “ Do you care 
if I steal an orange? I shan’t say good-night to 
Judgie, I’ve committed him to bread and water for 
three days.” The girl laughed. “ What’s that thing 



TRAITS 77 

they’re playing? ” She hesitated, nodding her head to¬ 
ward the music-room. 

Miss Aurelia thought it must be Dvorak’s “ New 
World. The Largo. . . 

Minga, curly head to one side, listened a moment, 
then she shivered. “ A little too weird and woozy 
for me,” she announced. “ I hate Sard’s taste in 
music; I want everything calcium-colored—Fizz,” 
said Minga explanatorily, “ and jazz and dizz!” She 
stood there, a little undetermined, listening and staring 
at the white moonlight on the water of the river 
stretched far out below the terrace. 

Then Minga looked solemnly at Miss Aurelia. 
“ Do you believe that love is divine ? ” she asked 
casually. 

“ Why,” said Miss Aurelia, “ why, my dear child, 
of course I do—it’s—I always thought—I—we—some¬ 
times—it is said to be.” 

But Minga, with a queer little self-conscious laugh, 
broke away from the gentle detaining hand. She 
walked up-stairs, whistling; as she passed Dunstan’s 
door, she gave it a decided thump. 

Later Sard slowly climbed the stairs to the tower 
room. The moonlight shone in patches and blocks of 
shimmering glamor on the floor and across the white 
bed. The girl stood looking out. She stared 
strangely with a look of concealed curiosity out to the 
seat under the enormous shadow of the great flower¬ 
ing horse-chestnut outside of the room where the 
music had been. All that evening Sard, soberly put¬ 
ting on records, had been conscious of a tall gaunt 


78 


UNDER THE LAW 


figure sitting on the rustic seat under the horse-chest¬ 
nut, its head buried in its arms. Now the seat was 
empty, but Sard could see a man standing out on the 
lawn amid a ring of Norway spruce spreading on the 
sky. It was Colter. 


CHAPTER IX 


WHOOPING IT UP 

Life these days expressed itself in a ring of auto¬ 
mobiles around the drive of Sard’s home. Minga’s 
coming stimulated the activities of a certain set known 
as the “ Bunch,” and the various hulking sedans or 
little roadsters lurching in the gutters were like so 
many beads on the rosary of her “ popularity.” In 
the village the prestige of the maidens was read by 
these signs. “ Peggy Martin can’t be very popular. 
I never see but one car in front of her house.” “ The 
Fairs must be very dull people. One never sees any 
parking on their driveway.” 

These machines, groomed and glossy, or in some 
cases dilapidated and frankly dirty, driven by a youth 
never contented to stay long in one place, had their 
own individual swan-songs and Iliads, their maladies, 
their insides, their prowess in speed and climbing, and 
furnished food for much of the conversation of 
Minga’s associates. A tall, red-headed lad would in¬ 
quire of his feminine neighbor, lolling in the canvas 
hammocks on the Judge’s terrace of an evening, “ Did 
you see her buck coming over the hill ? The old maid! 
Didn’t want to do the stunt on first, so I kicked her 
into second and she climbed it, the old girl, spitting 
and blowing. Well, I thought the cranky thing would 
bust a valve or something.” 

79 


80 


UNDER THE LAW 


Then would follow serious dissertation on spark 
plugs and gas tanks, the new fuels, graded lubricating 
oils and service fuses. 

“ Where do you garage now, Dave ? ” inquired one 
tan-shirted hedonist. 

“ Oh, I garage on the front lawn,” replied the care¬ 
less Dave. “ Mother hates it, says it spoils the grass, 
you know, but why bother about grass? Grass isn’t 
fashionable any more—out of date, I tell her, to have 
grass and flowers and things. Cut all that out, I say, 
old stuff! ” 

Another youth, dapper, with the long-boned face 
of the manipulator of social things, deftly drew at¬ 
tention to his own brand new roadster. “ Got Mother 
to jog the old gentleman some. Went out and played 
golf with him a couple of times. Result! ” With 
negligent cigarette he indicated the graceful powerful 
shape. “Like that color? Not too loud, what?” 
The youth appealed to the girls sitting on the stone 
coping that swept the river-ward side of the house. 
“ I don’t want ’em to think I’m Mary Pick ford or 
anything,” was his modest suggestion. 

The girls, swinging their feet encased in the flat, 
practical tennis shoes of the period, looked their usual 
momentary cold interest. Their heads, impertinently 
bobbed, or spectacularly “ bunned,” had abundant 
hair that covered bright enough little brains, but their 
mouths, trained into machine talk, dealt machine-like 
with little well-worn screws and cogs and belts of 
words, so that what they turned out was machine like; 
not related thought or challenging conversation, but 



WHOOPING IT UP 81 

trite sentences and inferences and ejaculations that 
made small circles of thought. 

Gertrude, the leader of the village girls, smiled 
dreamily at the car in question. “ It’s a good make, 
isn’t it ? ” she said, then—“ That firm’s worth millions 
of dollars, they say, even in these after-the-war 
days.” Minga nodded authoritatively, as one who 
knew. They all looked at her respectfully. 

“ The Mede says that to drive that car is to drive 
molten gold,” said Minga—it was understood that 
Minga spoke of her father as the Mede. No one knew 
exactly what the allusion meant, but it showed some¬ 
how that Minga was no slave to parental authority 
and that she “ knew ” history. 

“ I want Dad to get a new car instead of a new 
piano,” said Cynthia. “ With the talking machine and 
George’s cornet we don’t really need a piano—but I 
do need a good roadster to—to get to the library and 
—and church,” Cynthia inclined her head demurely. 

“ Yah—Yah ! ” they all jeered. “ To get to the li¬ 
brary and church! Some getting, I’ll say! ” 

Dunstan looked up. “ Whew ! ” he whistled, “ to 
get to the beauty parlor, to the hashish joint, to the 
ice-cream palace, to the hooch chapel.” 

“ Yah! ” they all laughed, Gertrude a little more 
spitefully than the others. Cynthia Bradon, a lithe, 
ripe blonde of sixteen, had had experiences with many 
things. It was known that she had had a few “ shots ” 
of morphine and would swallow, for a wager, many 
hectic and sulphuric beverages. She had run away 
and been unaccounted for for a week, she had been 


82 UNDER THE LAW 

photographed in a bathing suit by a moving picture 
man. Cynthia was not sensitive, and her beauty, 
peach-like and of a glowing dewiness, seemed about 
the most harmless beauty in the world, because it 
covered so empty and so trivial a soul. Among the 
elders, she was considered a lost character. Among 
those who knew her she was known to be merely 
silly, lazy and untidy. 

Cynthia’s own group accepted her without en¬ 
thusiasm or criticism. She was regarded as one who 
was no obstructionist and who by sheer triviality added 
much to the gayety of nations. Her “ line ” was silli¬ 
ness. Long education by the sensational type of mov¬ 
ing picture had removed from these young people any 
morbid sensitiveness. “ Cinny,” and “ Cinema ” as 
they called her, wanted to find out about morphine— 
let her. “ Fancy,” so named from Frances, was a 
fine swimmer, always diving against her mother’s com¬ 
mand. She had saved a child once—moral—if Fancy 
hadn’t disobeyed her mother she couldn’t have saved 
the child! Marjorie, who was fat and too evidently 
made up, was a good sport and awfully nice at picnics 
and sailed a boat well and was jolly and fair in all 
games. Gertrude, dubbed facetiously “ the road- 
hog,” had nearly killed an old man by running over 
him in breaking speed laws; but this fact instead of 
making her in any way taboo, only served to add to 
her interest as a rather tragic saturnine young person 
in extremely abbreviated skirts. 

They were all far away from the tradition and 
early training of the parents who had borne them, 


WHOOPING IT UP 


83 


spent incalculable money on them, scoured the realm 
for the best food for them; added to their youthful 
desires, their green sloths, given them leisure and op¬ 
portunity and crammed them with diversion but 
neglected to set them an unswerving example of 
strong, frank, fearless, reverent and purposeful life. 
The young people of to-day analyzed like a sort of 
mischievous ivy or burdock burr, growing rank in the 
pure garden of our purpose, have become what they 
are merely by feeding on the soil around them. They 
are the curious sports of a few rather shameful vines 
and fruits of our own negligence. 

When they speak flippantly of love and marriage, 
they do so with a very accurate knowledge of the 
percentage of divorces and the reasons for these di¬ 
vorces. When they reveal all that is legally possible 
of their fine young bodies, they do so after a war 
which placed the highest percentage on physical su¬ 
periority and challenged the needs for privacy, and 
they do so impelled by frankness and a healthy Nar¬ 
cissism that is much better than our old time reticence, 
our concealment of deformity and weakness, our 
aesthetic half-revealing and suggesting that made so 
strong a desire for full revelation. 

It would be rather a joke to find that in these ways 
youth may surpass us one day in virtue and purity. 
It is quite possible that Don Juan, about whom we 
whispered so much behind our hands, would make no 
impression at all upon the young men and women of 
Minga’s group. Walt Whitman’s great biologic, 
physiologic roaring they would frown over, puzzled. 


84 


UNDER THE LAW 


That one man, old, too, with a white beard, should 
speak familiarly of prostitutes and be so anxious to 
specify and catalogue arms and legs and thighs and 
bones and blood and bone-sockets, they, would think 
“ queer.” But if one were to step out and say to a 
group like that on the Judge’s loggia, “ Don Juan was 
over-sexed. His amours were silly and maudlin be¬ 
cause his great creator was an embittered and sensi¬ 
tive and suffering man ” there would be a low under¬ 
standing comment of “ Uh, huh ?—that so ? ” and a 
general cold-blooded note-taking as to Don Juan. 

To go on about Whitman and suggest that Walt 
was a great human comrade who at a time when there 
were no “ legs ” and no “ spades ” spoken of in the 
world believed in men and women recognizing the 
glory of sex and helping each other; believed in some¬ 
thing divine inside of each that works its way through, 
no matter how low we sink; believed that we must 
struggle and overcome, yet be honest while conquer¬ 
ing, sincere about life while controlled with it, that 
would be to receive the casual answer, “ Say, that’s 
some little Walt. Where did he tend bar?” But 
these things would strike little fire. There would be 
no real interest until one mentioned a new machine, 
a scientific discovery, a sporting champion or a unique 
crime. Then keen faces would be bent upon you, keen 
eyes would interrogate—Facts, facts, facts! So 
youth pushes by all your dreams, all your virtues, all 
your sentimentalities and theories for its true meat— 
facts! 

The light, the casual, the cynical, the flippant, the 


WHOOPING IT UP 


85 


pondering of rather gross realities and in the cases 
of the girls a very destructive, squalid and ignorant 
playing with the great laws of life as given into the 
hands of men and women is the expression of America 
to-day. To deplore is futile, to try to train any group 
of children away from these general lines of license 
and freedom, impossible. It belongs to the age; that 
age is the aftermath of crazy luxury and wealth. 
There is some great biologic secret behind it all, and 
this biologic secret may be that such wealth, such 
leisure, such exhibition, as opposed to inhibition, as 
we once deemed desirable is undesirable, unendurable, 
in that it affects life with a kind of sponginess, a sort 
of quicksand whereon nothing may grow or be built. 
It may be that such surroundings as we have tried to 
give our children have made their bodies fine, but 
have shrunken and vitiated their souls, that their use 
of our hard-earned materialism has been to deny all 
our insistence upon worth and solidity and virtue 
but it bears one sure portent. To the observer of the 
“ Minga group ” all over America to-day it is appar¬ 
ent that this Youth will some day take itself in hand, 
that it will create a new ethic of worth and virtue 
that will bear more acute scanning than does ours. 
That, though they must stop and go back to hard 
things and solemn things, above all to recreate the 
things they have -wasted; they are preparing for some 
enormous new Scheme, some great rational univer- 
salism; they will perform that duty ultimately, with a 
greater measure of understanding than our precepts 
could have given them. They will be free of all tan- 


86 


UNDER THE LAW 


gle and rot of the Seeming, they will know! They 
will go forward, keen, fearless, open-eyed, fit to help 
carry on the destiny of the whole world. 

Soon the general restlessness on the terrace com¬ 
municated itself in expression. “ Where do we go 
from here? ” asked one chap—he rose and did a short 
shuffling step, the others clapping their hands and 
whistling an air which ended with the plaintive re¬ 
frain: “And the reason he didn’t marry me, was his 
four merry wives across the sea.” Minga stepped 
inside and slipped on the phonograph a record of 
Honolulu Jazz and to this brassy whistling clangor 
the couples clinched, and young, long, canvas-shoed, 
thin legs stepped about in one of the curious walking 
dances of the time. This over, they stopped and 
dawdled, staring at each other. There were a few 
personal sallies, one or two lazy whoops, and then the 
old thirst for sensation: “Where do we go from 
here ? ” 

“ I know,” suggested the youth with the new car— 
“ Dunce, listen to my hunch, love me for my bright 
ideas. All hike out to Lovejoy’s for hot dogs and 
then back to Billy’s for sundaes. Come on, be a sport, 
everybody, what matter if you’ve got no coin? 
I’m cahoots with you, I’ll stand the multitude. Got 
me gold mine with me.” 

“ I can’t go,” complained Dunstan moodily, “ got a 
quizz coming at eight-thirty, the infernal Latin 
rooster. I’d like to choke him.” 

“ Cut it out, cut it out! ” came a chorus of stem 
voices. . . . Say, Dunce, what’s the matter with 


WHOOPING IT UP 


87 


yah, gettin’ queer? Hey? They only put Latin in 
the cirickulum to please the wives of the trustees. 
Yah! cut it out, man—say, if yuh don’t have any fun, 
you’ll go batty; the doctors all say so. Sure they do! 
Everybody does go batty that’s high-brow and studies 
and all that drool. Say, cut it out, whoop it up if yuh 
want to keep from suicide. By heck! you’ll do sumpin 
desperate if you keep up with this Latin, like that 
feller your old man is going to put in the Can. How 
about that trial; when is it coming off ? ” 

“ Chuck that,” muttered Dunstan, a grave significant 
look in the direction of the house—“ Governor is in¬ 
side. Sard’s coming out-” 

“ Sard’s coming out,” they chanted gibingly. 

“ Oh, the Mermaid Lady came out, you bet, 

She was not fully dressed: 

The pretty curls of her hair were wet 
I leave you to guess the rest.” 

This gem started by the young chap with the new 
car was taken up and chanted by his associates, all 
beating time and clapping in imitation of negro min¬ 
strels. It was done by way of changing an unwel¬ 
come subject and Sard, appearing at the door, put her 
finger on her lips. “If you want to sing,” she said 
laughingly, “ you’ll have to go in swimming or some¬ 
thing; Father’s in his den and I’m sworn to keep 
things quiet.” 

“ Getting up the data for the great day ? ” asked one 
boy saucily. 

Sard shook her head at him, but Minga giggled. 



88 


UNDER THE LAW 


“ Wouldn’t it be fun to go right in now, stand in a 
row in front of Judgie and say, 4 We, the under¬ 
signed, beg for the freedom of Terence O’Brien, given 
into our hands,’ you know the way they used to do in 
—in Bret Harte and places,” finished Minga a little 
vaguely. “ Get him out from under the law.” 

The group brightened; here was something to do, 
something unusual and racy and like the movies; they 
saw the drama of it. 

“ You’d have to have a writ of habeas corpus,” said 
one young fellow. He wore large round glasses and 
looked solemn. “ Who’s his counsel ? ” he demanded 
of Sard, professionally. 

She gave the name of a village lawyer—“ I’m afraid 
it’s only a form, though poor Dora’s wages go for it, 
for I—I don’t believe there is much defense,” Sard 
bent her brows. “ It’s all wrong, you know; one of us 
would have the best counsel money could buy; if our 
own families couldn’t afford it, some rich relative 
would come forward to save the name.” 

" That’s right, she’s dead right.” The young faces 
ranged along the terrace wall looked solemnly on 
Sard; from trifling, aimless pleasure-seekers they be¬ 
came suddenly sober, filled with the sense of human 
tragedy of inequality and unfairness. 

“ Well, then, come on.” Minga stood on audacious 
toes; she bowed like a preening butterfly. " Who’ll 
follow? I’ll lead!” 

Lounging to their feet they made ready to follow 
her but Sard, older and steadier, restrained them. 
“ That’s idiotic,” the girl said abruptly—“ you don’t 


WHOOPING IT UP 89 

know what a rage it would put Dad in, Minga! 
You’ve never seen him when he’s really angry.” 

“ Does he carry on some ? ” asked one of the boys. 

Sard was silent for a moment, then, “ He is quite 
terrible,” she said quietly; “ it would make things 
worse in every way to go to Dad now—besides you 
know as well as I do that he could officially do nothing, 
but,” Sard, looking at them all, spoke low, “ I have 
an idea, I’ve been thinking.” 

They always listened respectfully to Sard. She was 
the stuff of which leaders are made. Indifferent to 
popularity, caring only for the enterprise in which she 
was engaged, cool, controlled, just as she was in card 
games or swimming and tennis, now she took charge 
of the group as she had done a hundred times before. 

“ There’s that famous lawyer who is spending the 
summer in the organ builder’s house on the mountain; 
you know about him.” 

“ Don’t I,” spoke up Minga, eagerly. " He’s a 
great friend of my Cousin Eleanor Ledyard and her 
little Pudge; he writes Pudge the funniest letters. 
. . . My! ” sighed Minga. “ He’s frightfully im¬ 

portant; he’s been counsel for all the millionaires and 
magnates, he has eyes like X-rays, they look you 
through and through. Wow ! I’m afraid of him.” 

The other girl hesitated. “ He’s famous and all 
that,” she said slowly. “ Father knows him well, but 
I’ve read things he has written in the magazines and— 
and—he isn’t—well, you know how things are done ? ” 
The group, curiously enough, in spite of no reading at 
all, did know how things are done. How fatally the 


90 


UNDER THE LAW 


lies, the subsidizing, the political trickery and chican¬ 
ery persist in spite of the smug assumptions of vir¬ 
tues; the falsity of the effort to push the world back 
to an age where just the title of “ Christian ” would 
suffice instead of the more recent challenge which in¬ 
sists that the Christian be like Christ. They knew, 
these little sated, over-indulged, inexperienced sprouts 
of materialism, somehow or other, they knew. 

“ The loss of innocence ” which their elders so 
much deplored has given them a cool fatal knowledge 
of the rottenness hitherto hidden from them; they 
know the failures and compromises upon which that 
aesthetic dream of “ innocence ” has been dreamed. 
They will have none of it. 

Minga chassed to the terrace steps; she pinned a 
scarf around her head turban-fashion and her eyes 
shone with adventurous gleam. “ Say, listen,” she 
said in the vernacular—“ Say—listen—let’s all pile 
in the machines and go up there on the mountain and 
stand in a row before Watts Shipman. Let’s ask him 
to take Terence’s case; let’s ask him if he could get 
Terry off from a life’s sentence. All of us—Yes. 
What? Serve Judgie right,” added Minga, indig¬ 
nantly, “ for not being willing to talk to me about it.” 

“ Whew! ” breathed a young chap in white flannels. 
The youth, in large horn-rimmed spectacles, went sol¬ 
emnly over to Sard and held out his hand, “ I’m with 
you. It will make a sensation, anyway; maybe we 
couldn’t get much out of Shipman but I’m with you, 
only what will Papa say ? ” 

Sard had been thinking about that; a curious look in 


WHOOPING IT UP 


91 


her eyes, she faced the boy. “ Father’s law is one 
thing,” the girl said it without a trace of disrespect or 
rebellion, “ but mine is another and I want to be true 
to mine! I don’t know how you feel,” she looked 
soberly at the owlish one, “ but I can’t be happy and 
know that there is so much tragedy in the world. I 
can’t live under that law.” 

It was the old sad cry of youth, “ Must my hap¬ 
piness, then, be bought at the expense of so much 
human frustration and misery ? ” But the owlish¬ 
eyed one repudiated this notion. 

“ You’ll have to,” he said oracularly—“ somebody’s 
always hurting somebody—someone is always getting 
happiness out of someone’s else misery.” The horn¬ 
rimmed eyes looked very mature and bitter. 

But several of the group jumped down from the ter¬ 
race and were now tinkering with the machines in the 
drive. Jeering cries came from one to another as the 
engines started up. “ Minga goes with me! ” 
“Aw! go on, you animal, she does not; she goes with 
me; right here, Minga, where there’s a looking-glass 
and rouge and sachet powder and everything—Sard 
goes with Thorny Croft. Hey, Nonny, Nonny, the 
two nuts, the two high-brows! Cinny’ll catch cold; 
she hasn’t got enough clothes on; Cinny never has 
enough clothes on. How about the dance the other 
night? Well—well—well, we saw a good deal of 
Cinny! ” Not delicate, not pretty, not dignified, not 
inspiring. But it belongs to the age, Messieur et Mes- 
dames; what part have you had in making the age 
what it is? 


CHAPTER X 


THE EXPEDITION 


Dear Watts : 

Pudge wants me to write and thank you for 
your letter. He was fascinated with the arrow-heads 
and listened with his accustomed solemnity to your 
remarks about “ minding mother.” An hour after¬ 
ward I found him putting cold cream, which I have 
expressly forbidden him to touch, all over the kitten. 
Upon remonstrance he said blandly, “ You didn’t tell 
me not to put cold cream on the kitten, Mother, and 
she didn’t say anything.” It was all so funny and he 
was so naughty afterward! It opened up strange 
thoughts of all the responsibilities I shall have with 
him. I wondered if when Pudge grows up the first 
thing he will hear will be all the sad and ugly stories 
that are told of his father and if he will believe that 
they cast an irrevocable shadow on his own life. I 
have known young fellows who went steadily to the 
bad because their fathers were weak in some way. 
They thought they were foredoomed! 

I don’t even know whether to go on letting him have 
his own name, his father’s name, now disgraced and 
tragic, but how can I stop things? He is his father, 
he has his mouth, the beautiful, fateful mouth that 
always made me feel as if I were a ship, wrecked on 
it, and he has his hair and his voice and his reckless 
and beseeching ways. Oh, Watts, you saved my hus¬ 
band, all there was to save, brought him back home; 
though you couldn’t save him from himself. 

Thanks for the arrow-heads, Watts, and please write 
me when you like. You seem to think I might not 

92 


THE EXPEDITION 


93 


care to hear. I have known why it was always Pudge 
you wrote to, but I have grown a little stronger, a 
little less like a wounded animal that wants to bite the 
hand held out to it. I hope your mountain top still 
holds the peace you first found there. 

It was this letter that Watts Shipman saved until 
after his dinner, cooked by himself on a camp-fire out 
under the trees and served deftly and frugally with a 
sort of hermit cleanliness and economy. His pipe lit, 
the russet head of Friar Tuck on his knee, the man 
read and reread the pages. The deep eyes with their 
curiously grave and faithful look were puzzled, the 
long hands gripped once or twice on the paper, and 
the mouth curled down on the pipe-stem with a look of 
bafflement and grim disappointment. . 

“ Pshaw! ” Watts kicked away a tv/ig. He 
changed his position on the log upon which he sat. 
Putting the letter safely in an inside pocket, he got out 
his knife and cut rather restlessly into a long smear of 
yellow lichen on a tree. “ It's rather queer that a 
woman can talk like that, hold out her signal of dis¬ 
tress and then not tell you she needs you—it’s a queer 
thing,” said Watts solemnly to his dog. “ It's a queer 
thing, only a good woman can withhold her self; a bad 
woman can be subtle and elusive, a funny little beast, 
plotting, dreaming greedy, little clawing dreams and 
setting out her little poison traps for you, but a good 
woman merely draws the veil and you—well, Tuck, 
all you can do is to go home! ” 

Watts spoke the last words so loudly that Friar 
Tuck rose once. “ Woof, woof,” he barked loudly 


94 


UNDER THE LAW 


into his master’s face. Watts laughed. “ Hush, you 
baby, I know I said ‘ go home,’ but I’m not going 
home, Tuck, no sir, not to those comfortable, luxuri¬ 
ous bachelor apartments, not until I’ve roughed it a 
little longer and get the wisdom and rightness of the 
woods into me. For we can’t take another whole 
summer off like this, boy, for a long time. We’ve got 
to make it last, you old blase clubman.” 

The evening grew late. A very light breeze moved 
the tops of the hemlocks and their pointed heads 
moved darkly like nodding cowls, their brooding spell 
took the restlessness out of Shipman and he gazed 
lovingly up into their fronded gloom. “ Thank God 
for trees, the great brotherhood of the woodland 
priests,” he murmured. Watts filled his pipe, gazing 
affectionately at those dark brothers, saying softly, 
“ The Greeks got you better than we do, the souls 
and conscience of you; they trained their minds to 
regard you as some great principle connected with man 
and woman and so it was easy for them to imagine you 
as gods and goddesses. But we,” grumbled the law¬ 
yer, “ we with our superb logic and ‘ practical ’ minds 
have crystallized you into just ‘ trees,’ things that we 
plant for our shade and cut down for our fuel and on 
which we grow fruit. Friends,” said the man softly, 
as he went to one tree trunk and laid his arm around 
it, “ walk with us like teachers; be one with us, take us 
farther and farther into your counsels and your mys¬ 
teries and your reticences.” Watts Shipman laughed 
a little, then a guttural sound from Friar Tuck roused 
him from his revery. 


THE EXPEDITION 


95 


“ You did that before,” pointing his pipe at the 
russet head and solemn eyes. “ You,” accusingly, 
“ did that before.” Friar Tuck groveled and whined. 
Watts, leaning over to pat him, laughed. 

“Tuck, old chap, why do you cringe so? I’ve 
never hit you, nor as far as I know has any other man. 
Why do you act so humbly? You know as much as I 
do, the only difference is that you don’t know you 
know, and I do; but, after all, I only think I know, 
and that doesn’t prove anything, so cheer up, mon 
vieux; ” but at a distinctly menacing growl from the 
dog, Watts walked to the edge of the cliff to where 
his lamp was placed, and stared into the darkness. 

“ Shut up, you old barometer, no one can be coming 
up the mountain road at this hour, anyway not on this 
spur.” The man peered at his leather-cased wrist- 
watch. “ After eleven o’clock, and no one uses that 
mountain road at night; the driving’s rotten and the 
walking’s too craggy and storm-bitten for anything 

but snakes and foxes. Unless-” Watts thought 

of the mysterious ways of moving-picture campers. 
Going to the edge of the height on which the organ 
builder’s house stood, he peered down to the road 
curving far underneath. “ By all that’s American! ” 
he breathed; “ by the Great Original Flapper! ” 

For a long line of cars was ascending the steep 
mountain road, winding in and out of the turns. The 
young drivers, leaning out, cheered to each other, call¬ 
ing challenges, experimenting with different gears, and 
bawling advice and congratulations on the climbing 
power of their machines. The lateness of the hour 



96 


UNDER THE LAW 


seemed no curb to their haste or their assurance, nor 
did the impassable road rouse a feeling of insecurity. 
They were merely interested in the one car that should 
reach the top first. 

In Dunstan’s roadster Minga was advocating a swift 
rush that should pass the car ahead and gain the sum¬ 
mit speedily. Sard and the young lawyer tried by 
their own prudence to communicate that saving qual¬ 
ity to the others; here a driver shook his fist at some 
dare-devil brother, who passed him close to the ledge, 
thereby badly crowding his neighbors, who in turn 
swished into the road gutter until passed by one or two 
speed cranks trying to beat each other. 

When at last every car had reached the summit 
there were confident giggles, little gasps from the girls 
and a catcall of triumph, a harassed ejaculation from 
the masculine drivers. 

As they parked the machines in an orderly row on 
the mountain top, the great lights glared and the black 
forms crouched in powerful bulk on the uneven road¬ 
way, while the short-skirted, jaunty figures alighted 
with mingled sighs and stretches of relief. 

“ Moon’s doing pretty well to-night,” said Dunstan. 
He kissed his hand to it, calling up to the sky, 
“ All right, Mr. God, we like your little old scout 
moon. Some sky-dynamo, what? Savez? We like 
it!” 

They moved about, pawing with their feet, seeking 
out the path over the mountain top. Their shadows 
were elongated in the moonlight, for them there were 
adventure and mystery in the bushes all about; scents 


THE EXPEDITION 97 

of spearmints and bay and the curious smell of rocky 
plants came to them. 

One lad sniffed the air. “ I smell chewing-gum / 1 
he announced. 

“ I smell home brew stills,” shouted another youth, 
as he leaped up and grasped a branch like a young 
monkey. “ Right-o, lead on to your treasure cave and 
your fair women slaves.” 

“We got the fair women slaves right here,” in¬ 
sisted another cub person; “ all we need now is a cave 
and the cavemen will proceed to register. Look your 
prettiest, maidens. Put on your skins, your other 
skins, and your necklaces.” 

The hilarity, rather artificial, was the organized hi¬ 
larity of the “young” groups of the day; like the 
cheers of the colleges, the competitive “ rah-rahs ” of 
directed “ sides,” the “ fun ” was stimulated by rather 
jaded fun-leaders; so, as they entered the wooded 
plateau where the organ builder’s house stood, they 
were fairly howling and bawling with self-conscious 
youth and the sense of “ whooping it up.” 

“ Oh, Watts Shipman,” shouted a Yale sophomore. 
“ Oh, Watts Shipman, put out your head.” 

“ Oh, you criminal lawyer,” howled another boy, 
“ free the slaves, burn the Bastille, burn the pastilles 
—Rah—Rah—Rah! We want Terence, the great cut¬ 
throat of the Hudson,” and so in the pale sanctity of 
the moonlight the group stumbled on, plunging, ex¬ 
hilarated, a little uncertain and undecided and becom¬ 
ing increasingly silly. At some not very emphatic 
shrieks, giggles and rather over-done kissing sounds, 


98 


UNDER THE LAW 


Sard turned sharply. The girl, hatless, a little glint 
in her eyes, faced them. “ I don’t like this; you know 
it’s—it's not sensible." 

“ Ah," they said, “ ah, the lady doesn’t like it." 

“ I think we ought to take this thing more seri¬ 
ously," Sard continued with a little short breath of 
indignation, adding more gently, “ We don’t really 
know what we’re up against. I’ve heard that Watts 
Shipman is terribly reserved. We don't want to an¬ 
tagonize him." 

“ I shan’t antagonize him," came a fresh high voice. 
“ I shall vamp him. I shall twine around him like the 
ivy in the snow." 

They all chuckled. Minga, clad in scarlet sweater 
and skirt, with the orange silk handkerchief bound 
around her curls, suddenly slid into a bright patch of 
moonlight where the trees were thinnest, making a 
natural stage setting. 

“ I am terribly reserved," shrieked Minga in high 
falsetto. “ I am the primmest little prune in the 
county. But I am some little dancer and don’t you 
forget it, and I will dance his eyes out of his head. 
Ladies and gents," announced Minga, “ the Pocahon¬ 
tas Pep. Watch me ! " 

They stood there watching her prowling paces and 
archly bold postures. The slender form bent almost 
backward, the eyes filled with imaginary passion and 
adventure and fear. When she ended with a lovely 
fantastic rush and stampede, it is quite certain that 
that grave Indian maiden, the estimable Pocahontas, 
would have been as much fascinated as anyone else. 


THE EXPEDITION 99 

At the catcalls and whoops of applause, Sard again 
held up her hand. 

“ Minga,” she pleaded, “ Dunce, please, all of you.” 
Sard was very positive. 

The solemn lawyer youth in the background, silently 
adoring her, brightened as her voice took on asperity 
and decision. 

“ This is really silly,” she scolded; “ it’s—it’s not 
the way to do things. Didn’t we come up here to try 
to save Terence O’Brien?” she demanded. 

“ Sure,” soothed one of the boys. “ Right-o! ” 
added one or two more. 

“Well then,” said Sard, “if I know a thing of 
Watts Shipman from what I’ve heard Father say,” 
she dropped her voice to persuasive entreaty. “ No, 
really, Minga! Dunce! we won’t get a thing out of 
that man if we act like this; he’s very hard to deal 
with ; he’s cold and aloof and-” 

“An altogether haughty and disagreeable person,” 
said a deep voice. 

The group turned quickly, and there in the moon¬ 
light, his hand on the suspicious Friar Tuck's collar, 
stood the lawyer. 

There was a moment’s silence; a sort of shiver ran 
through the young people. It was a sensation they 
quickly recognized, but to which they could give no 
name; the voice and presence of spiritual poise, the 
calm, inexorable deliberation of assured authority. 

“ How do you do, everybody? ” said Watt's quietly, 
as quietly as he stood there waiting. 

That “ everybody,” grave as it was, contained an 



100 


UNDER THE LAW 


informal welcome that Minga was quick to recognize. 
She, who took hurdles as soon as they were presented, 
now tried to jump the barrier of this stranger’s power¬ 
ful personality. She stepped forward, a funny little 
figure in scarlet, opposite to the tall khaki-clad repose 
of the man. 

“How do you do, Mr. Shipman?” came the little 
voice in the moonlight. 

Minga was glib at these numbers. “ I’ve—we’ve 
heard so much about you, awfully glad to meet you; 
you know my cousin, Mrs. Ledyard, she’s told me just 
lots about you.” 

Watts swept a swift glance at the girl. . . . 

“ Yes,” he took Minga in and smiled, not unsympa¬ 
thetically, “ I know Mrs. Ledyard well; I am glad to 
meet a cousin of hers. It’s Miss Gerould, isn’t it? I 
am so glad to see you.” 

“ Well,” Minga, even before his indulgence, felt an 
unaccountable awkwardness; the erstwhile Pocahon¬ 
tas shifted from one foot to another while she dug 
both hands in the patch pockets of her tennis skirt. 
“ I—we—er—just came up,” she began; “ we all sort 
of—thought we’d like to know you.” 

Now the owl-eyed youth stepped forward with the 
grand manner of the college debater. 

“ We come on behalf of Terence O’Brien,” he be¬ 
gan. At the superior manner and the name, the great 
lawyer stiffened ever so imperceptibly, but suddenly 
the owl-eyed also lost courage, so that it was Sard who 
was forced to lucidify things. 

“We hope we aren’t intruding.” The girl’s voice 


THE EXPEDITION 101 

was even and poised. Watts looked at her with in¬ 
terest. 

“ We are in great distress and trouble about some¬ 
thing and we believed that you could—that you 
would help us.” 

“ This is Judge Bogart's daughter,” announced one 
of the boys with the society drawl of the “ impor¬ 
tant ” introduction. 

The lawyer, standing there, bowed. The moonlight 
disguised the look of curiosity, of humor, in his eyes; 
he scanned this awed group in rather fantastic outdoor 
get-up. 

“ It's a little late for calling, isn't it ? ” he suggested; 
then, seeing a slight resentment on the part of the 
owl-eyed, whom he instantly recognized as a struggler 
along his own difficult path of the law, he relented. 

“But delightful of you to climb way up here. Rather 
wicked roads, I’m afraid; some able driving.” With 
a hospitable gesture he led the way to the clearing in 
front of his house. Few of the young people had 
been up here before; there were looks of frank curi¬ 
osity and expressions of wonder that a modern club¬ 
man should choose to live in the organ builder’s old 
rookery. 

“ Well, it has its charm,” explained Watts, his grim 
mouth was humorous, “ but I shan’t ask you in; not 
while the moon’s like this! Now, if you fellows will 

drag out rugs and some cushions for the girls-” 

He was busy receiving his midnight guests as if all 
were quite usual. 

And quite usual it seemed to the young night hawks. 



102 


UNDER THE LAW 


The boys, sitting on stumps, rolled cigarettes or filled 
pipes; Minga and Gertrude also lit cigarettes, but the 
former, at Sard’s amused glance, tossed hers away; 
the thing, still smouldering, dropped on some dried 
pine needles. Shipman slowly turned from the owl¬ 
eyed and his look went directly to the little wisp of 
smoke. 

“ Your cigarette is still burning/’ he gestured to¬ 
ward it, then courteously, “ I am fire warden here; 
won’t you please put it out ? ” 

It was as if he assumed that a modern girl would 
prefer to do this herself, but Minga wilfully misunder¬ 
stood him. The little scarlet figure seated on the log 
resented the authority back of the deep kind gaze bent 
upon her. It was a stinging new experience for 
Minga to be reminded of a duty, an experience like a 
smart blow on the lithe little body, only it had none of 
the brutality a blow must have; perhaps that was why 
it stung. Minga hunched one shoulder; her eyes 
snapped as she turned away. 

“ You can put it out yourself,” was her pert remark. 

There was a nervous giggle, then a sudden silence. 
The scene in the moonlight was significant. The loaf¬ 
ing, negligent forms of the smoking youths, Sard 
standing vibrant, clear, but irresolute and waiting. 
Dunstan, the charmed faun look in his eyes, prone at 
Minga’s feet. The culprit flushed and annoyed, the 
girls frankly open-mouthed and uncomprehending. 
Again the owlish-eyed tried to take command. 

“Allow me,” with opera bouffe effect. He started 
toward the smoking cigarette, but, bowing very slightly 


THE EXPEDITION 103 

with an almost curt gesture of refusal, Watts pre¬ 
vented him. 

“ I am sorry, but in the capacity of fire warden, it 
is my duty to see that an ordinary camp regulation is 
obeyed” He turned to the provoked girl and, with 
very slight but intentional irony, asked, “ Do you know 
the meaning of that word ‘obey/ Miss Minga?” 

Slowly the girl rose and stared into his face. De¬ 
ciding to say nothing, she gradually stiffened and a 
hard look came into her eyes. “ I—refuse—to—I,” 
she tried for a lofty tone, but her voice was flat and 
childish, “ I—I am not accustomed-” 

“ Exactly,” said Watts quietly. “ The Mede and 
the Persian haven’t been successful with you in that, 
have they?—though they’ve let you become so charm¬ 
ing. You see,” he smiled, “ I’ve heard of you, Miss 
Minga.” 

At this the group writhed; one or two giggled a 
little uncertainly. 

“ Insulting,” breathed one lad dramatically. He 
put his hand first into one pocket and then the other; 
another cub person solemnly took out and considered 
a revolver but their host took little notice. 

“ You see,” said Watts, with an air of imparting in¬ 
formation, “ I believe in obedience—of course, I 
shan’t order you to put out the cigarette, Miss Ger- 
ould, but obliged as I am to you all for this—er—in¬ 
terest, yet after all you are my guest and, well, guests, 
even in America, still like to consider the preferences 
of the host and my preference is to observe forest 
laws.” 



104 


UNDER THE LAW 


There was an indeterminate silence. Loyalty to 
Minga, and their quick moving picture sense of out¬ 
rage, made them wish to murder this man, who was so 
quiet and so direct. “ Who/' thought the owl-eyed, 
“ was this stranger to command them all, order them 
around? ” Yet the thought Watts had just expressed 
seemed to them rather obvious; they had come unin¬ 
vited into this man’s camp. It seemed only decency to 
observe the rules. As they stood uncomfortably ir¬ 
resolute, they saw with wide-open eyes a strange thing 
happen. 

Watts Shipman stood in front of their little friend 
in scarlet, not touching her, only looking at her. Very 
slowly and calmly the man motioned toward the ciga¬ 
rette smouldering on the turf; very quietly, almost 
imperceptibly, he motioned the girl toward it. Minga 
rose like one in a trance, her eyes fixed unwillingly on 
those of the lawyer. Putting out one little canvas- 
shod foot, at first irresolutely, then with sudden ve¬ 
hemence she rubbed the burning cigarette into the 
ground till all saw that it was extinguished. The girl 
turned her face in the moonlight. It was broken with 
rage. “ I hate you. I hate you,” she breathed. Her 
teeth seemed to chatter with her sudden fury. 

Watts held out both hands. “ I’m sorry,” he said 
simply, “ but I think you know that I have done right.” 

The group of youngsters stood silent and amazed in 
the moonlight. They had beheld a thing as rare in 
America as lions and tigers; they had witnessed the 
power of just, quiet and inexorable spiritual authority, 
compelling obedience. Minga, looking around for 


THE EXPEDITION 


105 


sympathy, read no answering rebellion in their eyes. 
With a strange, an almost animal cry, the girl darted 
over to Dunstan Bogart. “ Oh, Dunce,” she choked, 
almost screaming, “ get me away from here—get me 
away, I tell you! ” 

She turned and dashed out of the circle into the 
rough mountain road, where they saw her stumbling 
like a driven thing; Dunstan Bogart, without an in¬ 
stant’s hesitation, following her. The boy’s eyes were 
glittering, his head held high in a sort of pride of 
championship. In a moment their car, tightly braked, 
was edging cautiously down the rock-hewn road. 

When at last they reached the levels, the boy sud¬ 
denly reaching over, put his hand on his companion’s, 
who sat rigid, immovable beside him. Minga looked 
at him fiercely a second time, with eyes that were hot 
with tears; she sobbed, “ Oh, I’m wild.” When they 
pulled up at the Bogarts’ garage she drew a long, 
shuddering breath, and her champion, staring amaz- 
edly at her, saw her face drenched with angry crying. 

“ Pshaw! ” said Dunstan. “ What do you care— 
that old granny on the mountain top! Why should 
you care ? ” 

“ I wish I was home,” said Minga, fiercely. “ Oh, 
I wish I was home.” The sheltering tenderness of the 
Mede and Persian would have been very grateful just 
then to their little daughter. 

“ Minga,” said Dunce earnestly, “ I could have 
brained that brute; so could the other chaps. What 
business had he to- He’ll get his yet.” 

“ I hate him, I hate him,” repeated the girl viciously. 



106 


UNDER THE LAW 


She twisted her handkerchief in her hands and her 
eyes grew wide with something now unaccountable. 
While she fought for self-possession, the boy beside 
her, with a tenderness he hardly understood, stroked 
the soft, curly head; he uttered clumsy words of com¬ 
fort. 

“Any man,” said Dunstan, “ any man who would do 
such a thing is a pretty low sort of cur.” 

“He isn’t just a cur,” objected Minga miserably; 
“ a cur could—couldn’t make me f-feel like this.” 

“ Well, he’s a comic supplement,”—Dunce snapped 
his teeth viciously, “ he’s a—an Egyptian obelisk,” 
raged the boy, “ and I’d like to cut some more hiero¬ 
glyphics on him.” 

So the two sat in the little roadster, arrested in their 
impulsive pampered lives by one of the greatest laws 
that has ever been laid on humanity, the Law of Obe¬ 
dience, incoherent in their inner warrings of hurt 
pride, they tried to sustain each other. Dunstan’s 
awkward arm went once around Minga’s little red- 
clad figure; he strove in a callow way to be tender, 
but only for a moment. 

For a tempestuous Minga stood up straight in the 
car. 

“ For Heaven’s sa-sake,” she demanded with a slight 
sob, “ For Heaven’s sake,”—gulp—“ what do you 
think this is, Dunce Bogart, one of those petting 
parties? Do you think I’m a park lady or one of 
those Sunday-school picnic vamps ? ” 

Dunce looked sheepishly determined. “ You re¬ 
member what I said that first night,” he said solemnly, 


THE EXPEDITION 107 

“ that Td kiss you again—and better—that's what 
you’ll—you’ll feel, some day.” 

To her disdainful silence he went on, “ Well, I 
haven’t yet, but I’m going to; you wait.” He wagged 
his head. 

But there was a little distressed quiver in her voice, 
and the essential manhood in Dunstan answered it 
with gentleness. He himself rose and the two 
climbed soberly down out of the car. Through the 
great trees they saw the cathedral moonlight still sil¬ 
vering all the world and the sleep and quiet, the maj¬ 
esty of the night, touched them. They saw depths of 
life that they had never fathomed; depths that sad¬ 
dened and frightened them. Together they softly 
closed the garage doors, together they entered the dark 
house and crept slowly up-stairs. 

“ Good-night, Minga,” said Dunstan softly. “ Do 

you care that—that I was there-” The boy looked 

solemnly at her. 

The girl, pausing at the door of her room, lifted her 
head and looked at him. “ You were the only decent 
person on the whole trip,” she said softly. She put 
her hand in his; it was cold and little. Dunstan, won¬ 
dering, felt it tremble. 

When a boy goes to bed remembering a girl’s trem¬ 
bling hand does he ever ask himself who made that 
hand tremble, or does he always feel sure that it was 
he who stirred the young life to quivering? 



CHAPTER XI 


TERMS 

The sudden abandonment of the Terence O’Brien 
crusade by Minga and Dunstan cast a chill over the 
other plotters and a sort of obstinate silence settled 
down on the young intruders on Watts Shipman’s 
privacy. One of the boys got up, put his hands in his 
pockets and walked aimlessly about, kicking at peb¬ 
bles and whistling; the girls’ voices took on drawling 
inflections of careless indifference. The young lawyer 
tried some professional small talk that sounded oddly 
in the poetic surroundings of forest moonlight to which 
the senior listened without much interest. Shipman, 
with an amused sense of liking to see these calm 
young persons at a disadvantage, wondered if they 
would not under the awkward stress of the thing de¬ 
velop a few sensibilities, but he allowed the moment to 
remain as clumsy as it might be. 

The only one who realized the man’s inner comment 
was Sard; she it was who had fretted helplessly at the 
inopportune behavior of her girl friend; nettled, she 
now resolved that the meeting should be opened and 
she moved a little on the log where she sat. 

Watts rose and gravely motioned her to take his 
abandoned seat. “ You see the river better from 
there,” he urged. “ Rather nice in the moonlight, 
don’t you think? You know Drake’s ‘Culprit Fay*? 

108 


TERMS 


109 


Of course, such a delicate poem, made of shells and 
straws and fairies' wings with this monster stream for 
background ”—he shrugged, scanning the girl's face, 
saying lightly,—“ Do you suppose all this beauty really 
got through the Dutchman's skin, or did it lie dormant 
till Irving brought it to life? A pity, after those ‘ his¬ 
toric fires of liberty,’ and a young woman's college 
adorning it, and all the tremendous striking events of 
its history, that this river’s chief ornaments should be 
a prison, a military academy and a lot of rich men's 
homes! Have you ever thought,” went on Shipman 
purposefully, “ what a marvelous thing it would be if 
we could have heroic statuary all along our river 
banks, really heroic statuary, sculpture of the great 
deeds of discovery, the statues of men who invented 
things for human good, great inventors, great mothers, 
great scientists, great writers, great explorers; not a 
single statue that should spell wars or the glory of 
wars, but all the superb names that bear witness to the 
everlasting wonder and glory and forward looking of 
Human Life.” 

Of course, this exhortation was to put her at her 
ease. The girl recognized this, and while she hardly 
heard the words of the man standing there, she 
thanked him mentally. As Sard met Shipman’s eyes 
she tried to look as if she, at least, had completely 
forgotten the Minga incident. Anyway, Sard had 
seen things like that happen to Minga before. Only, 
in all those two years at college, reflected the girl, 
Minga had never been so completely, so lamentably 
driven from her accustomed aplomb. The thing did 


110 


UNDER THE LAW 


not make Sard like the great man any too well, but the 
memory of the figure of poor Dora at her work, the 
sense of a boy of Dunce’s age going to prison “ for 
life,” these things spurred her on to what she had to 
say. 

“ Perhaps we ought to apologize for coming up here 
like this,” began the girl tentatively, “ but,” she 
laughed a little, “ I don’t think we will.” 

“ I cannot imagine your having ever to apologize.” 
Watts’ eyes were upon her, the expression in them 
very different from that with which he had subdued 
Minga. He looked a sort of wondering admiration, as 
a man may at the young face and figure so exquisitely 
balanced in so complete a dignity. To Watts’ keen 
knowledge of human personality, Sard spelled clarity, 
essential purity; but it was not ignorant purity nor 
insulated clarity. It was the healthy nerve and spar¬ 
kle of an original daring nature, something direct and 
vigorous that went straight to its interests and issues 
in a direct, fresh way, that looked things in the face 
and tackled them in front. 

“ We,”—Sard looked around at her rather ineffec¬ 
tual supporters,—“ we believe that you can help us 
about something—someone—Terence O’Brien,” the 
girl blurted it out to the famous lawyer with a little 
catch of the breath. Her voice, naturally liquid, was 
a little husky, but she held herself admirably. 

“ The man who is held for murder ? ” the lawyer’s 
voice was grave. 

“ The boy,”—with ever so slight an insistence on 
“ the boy,”—“ who killed that old cobbler.” Sard 


TERMS 


111 


glanced eagerly into Watts' face. “We have been 
talking about it, all of us, a great deal; all Willow 
Roads is excited over it because he is so young." 
The girl hesitated a moment, then she said simply, “ I 
haven’t been able to discuss it with my father 
but-’’ Sard paused; something she had not reck¬ 

oned with of embarrassment seemed to thicken her 
throat, but she plunged bravely on. “Life sentence is 
what everyone thinks he will get, life sentence." Her 
hand went out with a curious despairing little gesture 
that Watts noted with concern. She turned on him 
dark eyes, womanly, tragic. “ Life! Have we—has 
anyone the right to take from anyone so young the 
chance to try again ? " 

The lawyer instinctively admired the girl for her 
directness, and he met her with equal directness. 
“ No," he said, “ we haven’t, no one has, under any 
circumstances, the right to take life but in such cases 
we choose a lesser evil instead of a perfect good. 
Here the problem is that this boy, for a small amount 
of money, wantonly killed an old man, who had be¬ 
friended him, trusted him; ‘murder,’" said Watts 
emphatically, “ is on his soul—do you think he would 
have strength to live again ? " 

It was stated very simply, but with such unadorned 
clearness that Sard shivered. Shipman, without 
speaking, got up and went into the house, presently 
emerging with some light steamer rugs and Italian 
blankets, one of which he drew around Sard's shoul¬ 
ders. He motioned in a big brotherly way to the 
somewhat subdued girls of the party, “I'm afraid 



112 


UNDER THE LAW 


you’re all cold. Shall we go in ? Haven’t you sweat¬ 
ers or something?” 

But something stiff in this little party made them 
refuse to enter the house; it might almost have been 
that this strange man who lived in the organ builder’s 
house had so impressed them by a sense of inherent 
personal power that they felt actually safer outdoors. 
Anyway, Minga, the little scarlet leader of all their 
pranks and escapades, their rather elaborately planned 
defiances and simulated viciousness, had been shamed 
by this man. Sard, it seemed, also remembered it; 
however, she did not refuse the Italian blanket, though 
she let it slip to her knees. The lawyer noted this, 
and the corners of his mouth moved slightly. 

He turned to the younger practitioner of his pro¬ 
fession. “ It is an ugly case,” he remarked gravely. 
“ The way it was done,” he made a gesture of dis¬ 
gust, “ the boy must have something essentially 
sneaky and cold in him. There are natures like that,” 
he turned to Sard, “ natures that you could hardly, 
with all your imagination, realize or comprehend.” 

So the group sat in the moonlight discussing the 
thing. One by one the lawyer drew the young philan¬ 
thropists out. Under the rather marked paucity of 
expression he found the same impulse, the broad hu¬ 
man wish to give this boy, caught like a fly in the net 
of the law, “ another chance.” Watts quietly relaxed, 
sat there in the moonlight, studying the sober young 
faces. Finally he spoke the thing that had first of all 
come into his mind. 

“ Perhaps I ought not to ask this,” turning to Sard, 


TERMS 


113 


“but your father, in this county, is the Law and 
Prophets. The country people dote on his judgments; 
they trust him; somehow I should think no lawyer 
would influence his decision, no jury’s verdict inter¬ 
fere with his sentence. He, I should think in talking 
with you, would be able to make you feel the essential 
inevitability of the thing.” 

There was silence as the group faced him, such deep 
solemnity on the young faces that Shipman all but 
laughed; the lawyer, accustomed as he was to study¬ 
ing all phases of human conduct, found himself 
amazed at the unanimity of serious purposes underly¬ 
ing this group that he knew to be the most unruly, 
unpromising of all unpromising small-town groups. 

“ Judge Bogart is an infallible man,” he repeated 

softly. “ His suggestions-” It was evident that 

the lawyer expected a “ suggestion ” from Judge Bo¬ 
gart’s daughter. 

But it was as if Sard had hardly heard him. At 
last: “ My father prefers not to discuss these things 
with us.” The girl said it very quietly and there was 
no hint of criticism of her father, but she went on 
thoughtfully, “ Perhaps, though, he belongs to some¬ 
thing that is becoming worn out,” again she made the 
curious despairing little gesture, “ mightn’t it be pos¬ 
sible that some day all these things will be changed, 
that there will be no more 4 life sentences,’ that we 
who come after will see the way to make things better, 
fairer? ” 

Shipman laughed a little ironically; he turned to 
the young lawyer. “ How would Miss Bogart like it 



114 


UNDER THE LAW 


if she had to give the life sentences ? ” he asked lightly, 
but the girl had her answer ready and she gave it 
with a powerful conviction that arrested him. 

“ I should not want to live myself,” she said in low, 
distinct tones. “ I should not want to live if I thought 
we should always have to have crime in the world.” 
Sard faced him a little defiantly; she was remember¬ 
ing the voice of poor Dora in the kitchen. “ Is it 
justice,” I ask you, “ is it justice to take a young boy 
like that, take him for life, never give him another 
chance ? ” 

Another of the group now spoke up. “ Lots of 
men and women are at large who ought to be in 
prison.” 

Watts smiled. “ Lots of boats do sink on the sea, 
but that is no reason why we should build our boats so 
that they will sink. Law, you see, is society’s effort to 
protect its best from its worst.” He looked interest¬ 
edly at the young speaker. “ You couldn’t marry and 
have a home without law,” curiously studying the boy. 

“ And I couldn’t get a divorce without law, some 
kinds,” grinned the cub. It was a technical retort, the 
typical “ smart ” answer of the up-to-date youngster. 
It gave his group courage; there were various asides 
among the members of the circle, a few titters and 
smothered witticisms. 

Shipman rather enjoyed the little drama being en¬ 
acted before him; he smoked imperturbably while he 
appeared to give this answer thought. “ I suppose we 
ought to remember that the law that makes divorce 
possible rose first in the minds of men and women,” 


TERMS 


115 


he said evenly. “ But we must ask ourselves how 
well those minds are instructed. In any case, I take 
it, the law, no matter how badly interpreted, is soci¬ 
ety’s weapon against itself! New laws put upon 
paper and framed by act of Legislature or of Congress 
are to counteract certain old laws which were inade¬ 
quate. When I insisted that your little friend extin¬ 
guish her cigarette,” the lawyer gravely searched the 
darkening faces in the moonlight, “ it was merely to 
enforce a law which makes forest fires less probable. 
When I enact a law that separates a good woman from 
a bad man or vice versa, I protect the weaker against 
the stronger; when I support a law that insists that a 
boy’s liberty be taken from him, after a dastardly 
murder, I make it possible for people to move about 
with varying degrees of safety from like murder. It 
is not my affair if these laws are not modified. It is 
for you and people like you to keep laws and by keep¬ 
ing them gain the power to make better ones.” 

The circle, a little daunted by his calm willingness 
to discuss, were disposed to receive this without com¬ 
ment. The little lawyer in the owl glasses kicked 
rather disconsolately at a bunch of turf, the other lads 
fidgeted. Somehow the crusade to intercede on be¬ 
half of Terence O’Brien had lost its moving-picture 
sensationalism. They realized that they had run up 
against a quiet man of steel and iron, who was more 
or less amused and not very impressed by them; there 
were murmurings and half-formed suggestions that 
they should leave until Sard, with a kind of resolution, 
rose suddenly from her seat and stood in front of 


116 


UNDER THE LAW 


Shipman. She looked directly into his face and he 
saw determination in her; the sort that does and dies, 
but does not abandon its object. 

“ I—I believe you are kind,” said the girl, in a low 
questioning tone. 

The man, a little surprised, waited gravely. 

Sard spoke rather timidly. “ I understand how you 
and other lawyers look at these things, by rote, sort 
of, isn’t it? And you forget it is men and women 
you deal with; only * cases ’ and knotty * points/ isn’t 
that true ? ” 

Watts, rather piqued, bowed in answer. 

“And I know,” said Sard quickly—“ it seems queer 
to ask it, but you, a man of your power, could influ¬ 
ence a country jury, couldn’t you, from your way of 
putting a thing, from your knowledge of how to speak 
to the point? Would you,” the girl looked eagerly 
into the half-shadowed face, “ would you be willing 
to appear for Terry’s defense if—we—we paid you 
any fee you asked? I think we could get the money 
some way.” The girl was clearly nervous now; her 
breath came a little quicker as she stood her ground, 
saying simply, helplessly, “ Would you ? ” 

Watts marveled at her. This man knew the way a 
person with a deep conviction always acted, and no 
one more solemnly respected conviction. It was the 
steady return to the subject in hand, the resolute per¬ 
sistence, in spite of every objection and obstacle, that 
won the great lawyer’s respect and admiration. Sud¬ 
denly a gleam came over his face and he rose, stand¬ 
ing as Sard stood, answering her as simply. “ You 


TERMS 


117 


have interested me,” he said quietly; “ it is true that I 
am here for a season of rest, but if the trial comes off, 
as I think you said, in the early fall, I believe it will 
be held in your father's jurisdiction." 

Sard nodded, her eyes fixed upon him. 

The lawyer stood, his hands in his coat pockets, his 
eyes on the ground, considering. Suddenly he looked 
up and addressed the wide-eyed circle. “ I should ask 
one sort of fee only." 

This consent of itself was so sudden, so unhoped 
for, that a thrill went around the group; someone in 
the circle fairly gasped. Casual, indulged, the young 
people had hardly tackled the question of a great law¬ 
yer’s fee; the youngsters waited, jaws dropping to 
hear the spokesman’s answer. 

“ From you," Shipman turned to Sard, “ I should 
only ask cooperation along lines which we will work 
out together; from you," turning to the little lawyer, 
“ I must beg the privilege of an occasional confer¬ 
ence." 

The little owl-eyed bowed a solemn and somewhat 
puffed-up acknowledgment. But Shipman, with eyes 
enigmatic, turned upon the rest of the group, “ I feel 
that to obtain a—er—certain solidarity, that my fee 
should come from all of you. Taxing each one of you 
a certain percentage per month would, of course, make 
a hole in your allowances-" 

Instantly the curious derisive protest went up. The 
group had grown gradually less in awe of the great 
man. Now they openly rebelled while they were half 
agreed. Those whose murmurings were in earnest 



118 


UNDER THE LAW 


were smothered by their companions who bade them 
be “ sports/' At last someone stepped forward grace¬ 
fully, offering his hand. It was the youth with the 
new blue car. Watts gripped his young paw with 
liking. The others then followed in rapid succession. 
“ Good-bye, chocolate sundaes," said somebody with a 
groan. “ Where do we get off, at the poorhouse ? ” 
asked another cub. “ Farewell, my wrist-watch, good¬ 
bye, golf caddies; me for the lessening waistband," 
they giggled and shuffled and hooted their dismay, 
knowing well that what the man before them asked 
was no real hardship, yet making their reluctance very 
evident. Watts noted with wonder, however, that in 
this, as in everything else, they kept to their squad 
formation, one man having agreed, all agreed. Some¬ 
one then suggested gruffly that it was time to depart. 
With awkward leave-taking and self-conscious thanks 
they finally took themselves away. 

All but Sard, who hesitated in the lull occasioned 
by the departing group, again callow, vociferous, with 
a sense of restraint removed. 

Shipman, an enigmatic expression on his face, 
turned to her and held out his hand. “ Will you for¬ 
give me? " 

The girl, wondering, hesitated, but Shipman, the 
fine cool hand once in his, did not let it go too quickly. 
“ I have treated your friends pretty meanly," he said, 
“ but I wanted to see if they really mean anything.” 

The girl returned his gaze; for the first time he saw 
challenge in the fine young eyes, and his own leaped 
to their full power. 


TERMS 


119 


“ You saw? ” asked Sard coolly. 

Shipman threw back his head, but his laugh was not 
quite as assured as usual. 

“ You haven’t forgiven me 1” He pretended amuse¬ 
ment. 

“ Perhaps,” said the girl, a little bitterly, remember¬ 
ing his earlier remarks, “ I have to protect society 
from you.” The lawyer winced; his hand quickly re¬ 
linquished hers and dropped to his side. 

“ You mean ? ” he said quickly; the man took a step 
forward, staring into her face—“ I wonder what you 
do mean.” 

“ Good-night,” said Sard, her voice quivered a lit¬ 
tle, but she made the effort to be businesslike, “ you 
will let me know what you can in connection with the 
case, with Terence,” then a sudden little impulsive 
softening, “ I do thank you. I know that you have 
been kind and patient with us.” She motioned to the 
solemn-eyed one waiting at a little distance for her. 
“ I must hurry. Good-night! ” 

They shook hands again, this time a something of 
liking between them, and Shipman watched the girl 
step confidently out of his wondering observation. 

Car after car curved away down the steep road, 
young voice after young voice died on the midnight 
mountain echoes, but until very late indeed a man 
stood looking out upon the moonlit Hudson, and it 
seemed to Watts Shipman that the whole mountain 
said, that all the trees and rocks and stars and ripples 
said to each other one significant word and that word 
was “ Youth.” 


CHAPTER XII 


THE MAN ON THE PLACE 

“ Will you do something for me ? ” Sard had asked 
Minga on the day of her friend’s arrival. Later she 
had made the request that Minga lead up to the sub¬ 
ject of Terence O’Brien; only because she had lost the 
courage to speak of the thing that those days was con¬ 
tinually in her mind; namely, the mystery of the new 
man Colter. He, who busied himself quietly all day 
about the drives and shrubberies and caring for the 
cars, and who, at night, she saw strolling around to 
the garden seat to listen to the music of the Judge’s 
pet records. But now, after a comradeship of two 
weeks, much of Sard’s restraint had vanished, so that 
as the two girls glided in the little roadster out of 
OBogart’s drive one morning and Minga asked curi¬ 
ously, “ What was that thing, Sardy, that you were 
going to tell me?” her friend’s answering laugh was 
less conscious than it might have been. 

“ Oh, I want you to pass on a discovery of mine; 
something I’ve got out in the garage.” 

“A pup?” Minga was politely interrogative. 

Sard bent to shift gears; she smiled cryptically. 
" No, no, not a dog; but I picked it up and brought it 
home the way one would a badly used dog. It’s 
partly Aunt Reely’s pet, too,” added Sard gravely; 
“ she gives him advice, but I found him.” 

120 




THE MAN ON THE PLACE 


121 


“ A turtle,” guessed Minga idly; “ one doesn’t give 
a turtle advice, though, does one? Oh,” she turned 
an accusing face on her friend, “ I’ll bet it is just that 
horrid old man, a plain, dirty tramp.” Immediately 
the little figure in scarlet lost interest, and as the car 
glided softly along the river road and up toward the 
little valley village of Morris, Sard frowned thought¬ 
fully. “ Just the same, I want you to pass on him,” 
said the older girl; “ he’s rather a strange specimen, 
Minga.” Asked her friend abruptly, “ Have you ever 
seen a case of amnesia?” 

Minga, wrinkling her brows, remembered that there 
was a girl who studied too hard at college and she 
had amnesia and couldn’t remember to put her clothes 
on properly. “ That,” said Minga, with emphasis, 
“ made me decide right then that I would never study 
too hard. But I never saw any amnesia,” added 
Minga. “Is it anything like asthma?” 

“ It’s like the light going out of your head, I guess,” 
said Sard, “ and the paths of your mind don’t lead 
home; don’t lead to the You that knows you; and it 
will make all the yous suddenly run into each other, 
and you are suddenly lost. For instance, I could have 
amnesia so that I could see you, but there wouldn’t be 
any me. You know, the recognition part of me 
would be all thin air, and objects stuck in it like houses 
and men and women that meant nothing. I’ve been 
reading it up,” explained Sard. 

Minga shivered. “ Don’t describe such awful 
things,” she begged. 

" But it’s interesting.” There was a reflective light 


122 


UNDER THE LAW 


in the other’s eyes. “ I was born to be a psychologist, 
I guess, because such things interest me. Think, for 
instance, of not knowing who one is, or one’s own 
people! Or perhaps standing right in front of one’s 
home and not recognizing it! Such things happen. 
Like doors closing on the room where the mind used 
to live, and turning the mind out into a cold new world 
where it can’t take hold, where it has words and in¬ 
telligence, but no recognitions.” 

“ Wow! ” Minga twisted an unwilling shoulder. 
“ Stop talking about it. Shut up! ” 

“ Well,” argued Sard, “ that’s what I think is the 
matter with that man we’ve got right before our eyes. 
Dad and Aunt Reely say it isn’t so, of course; they say 
I imagine too much.” A very slight irritation crept 
into the sober young face that scanned the road ahead. 
“ Older people go in for peace and comfort more than 
anything else, don’t they ? ” 

“ I think maybe it’s more just public opinion,” said 
Minga, rather penetratingly for her rattle brain. 
“ Older people get used to what their set says and 
does, and it just becomes sort of home life for them 
and they don’t want anything else. They refuse to 
get out and think outside of what that set thinks and 
does, because it wouldn’t be cosy; it’s like going out on 
a winter trail when everybody is home sitting by the 
fire. They want to sit by the fire. They don’t want 
to progress.” 

“ It wouldn’t be ‘ popular/ I suppose.” Sard avoided 
a bump. “ It’s funny, but I keep thinking that if any 


THE MAN ON THE PLACE 123 

good things are to be accomplished we’ll have to get 
rid of popularity.” 

“Well, I shan’t,” said Minga. “Popularity? 
You can’t get anywhere in America unless you are 
popular; but,” the little philosopher added solemnly, 
“ isn’t it queer, Sard, that—that we all, you and I and 
all of us, have got to run the world some day whether 
we want to or not? Everybody else will be dead— 
all the aunts and fathers and mothers,” Minga shiv¬ 
ered a little—“ and we, we shall have to sign the bills 
and give the sentences and be responsible.” Minga 
looked dreamingly at the wind-shield and at the cars 
flashing by them. She clearly did not like the pros¬ 
pect. 

The older girl nodded. Sard guided her car up to 
the curb in front of the little Morris bank. 

“ What are you going in for? ” 

Sard flashed a smile. “ Well, I—I am going in to 
pay Mr. Lowden, that’s the cashier, some money I 
borrowed the day I found this man Colter. You see,” 
added Sard casually, “ I found him in the gutter up 
here in Morris and I had no place to take him to nor 
any money and Mr. Lowden managed for me. He 
seemed to know what to do.” Sard got out and 
leaned against the car. Her straight, slim personality 
in its turquoise blue cap and scarf was a lively bit 
of poised youth; she stood twinkling into Minga’s 
perturbed eyes as she said: 

“ Oh, you’ll have to get used to my queer people 
that I try to rescue,” then, “when we go back I’m 
going to take you to the garage and show Colter to 


124 


UNDER THE LAW 


you and then you’ve got to put on your thinking cap 
and tell me what has happened to him and what he 
is!” 

“ Of all things,” breathed little Minga with dis¬ 
gust, “ and there’s a rip in your sleeve, too,” she 
added in tones of injury. “ Sard, don’t go and get 
queer and interested in things that awful way that 
some girls do.” Minga was clearly aggrieved. 

But Sard had run up the bank steps and turned 
in the direction of the cashier’s office. Through the 
plate glass window she bowed to the president; his 
massive head and broad low brow and deep-set eyes 
emphasized a rather unusual type of the quiet country 
gentleman. Stepping into the partitioned consulting- 
room the girl found someone already in conference 
with the cashier. It was Watts Shipman. Sard drew 
back. “ Oh, I’m intruding.” She was hesitant. 

“ No, indeed; ” both men rose with cordial insist¬ 
ence. “ I was just going,” said Shipman reassur¬ 
ingly. 

The girl flushed. “ I can come back again,” then 
something steadying her, to the cashier, “ I wanted 
to settle with you, Mr. Lowden, about our man Col¬ 
ter. You were so kind that day, you helped me so 
wonderfully.” She smiled a little shyly. “ For a mo¬ 
ment I didn’t know what to do.” 

The man made courteous deprecation. “ I was so 
glad to be of service.” Anticipating the girl’s wish, 
he put a slip of paper into her hand, and Sard read 
it interestedly, her brows raised. 

“ This can’t be all. He was two nights at that 


THE MAN ON THE PLAGE 125 

boarding-house, I think, and his clothes were pressed 
and laundered—and—someone got him shoes-” 

“ Just the same,” the young fellow laughed, “ that’s 
all it is. I strongly suspect. Miss Bogart, that the 
village philanthropists were as much interested in your 
case as you were, only,” he sighed a little, “ you took 
the lead. You were the real Samaritan; the rest of 
us might—well, it is just possible we could have 
passed that man day after day until he dropped dead 
from neglect and exhaustion. The doctor said it 
was only a question of a few hours more without 
food.” 

“ You would have believed he was a tramp,” ex¬ 
cused Sard. Though she knew it was no excuse. 

“ But you knew that he was not a tramp,” said the 
man quietly. Then as he gravely acknowledged the 
sum Sard laid on the desk, “ Does he grow more 
coherent ? ” 

Sard looked grateful for this intelligent interest, so 
different from the sensational kind manifested by 
other acquaintances. “ He just works,” she said 
thoughtfully, “ works and reads and says very little. 
He almost never goes to the kitchen as the other men 
we employ do, and he reads a great deal and takes 
long walks. He knows the countryside thoroughly 
and if you ask him questions about flowers, he tells 
you queer scientific things, and—and-” she hesi¬ 

tated. 

The look of interest on the face of the lawyer sit¬ 
ting here made the girl pause; an inherent reticence 
in Sard was a noticeable characteristic. Before Ship- 




126 UNDER THE LAW 

man she was on her guard; with a little nod she turned 
and was gone. 

The two men, admiring, noted the quick decision, 
the arrest of confidence, and smiled at each other. 

“ It was Miss Bogart who headed my cavalcade last 
night,” said Shipman, “ and she was spokeswoman for 
the O’Brien matter. Has she, do you think, much 
influence with her father?” 

The young cashier put his finger-tips together. 
“ With Bogart ? Did you ever know anyone who ever 
had any influence with Bogart? You don’t know the 
man; he’s not modern in any sense. He has the hard 
and fixed ideas of crime and punishment. He be¬ 
lieves in the Example. Punishment is his fetich. 
From his point of view, if he gives this young chap a 
life sentence, fewer old men will get shot in the back. 
That’s Bogart’s point of view.” The cashier rumi¬ 
nated for a few moments, then added, “ any jury 
knows it and plays upon it.” 

His visitor nodded, then smiled a rather dry smile. 
“ It might, however, eventually mean more old men 
shot in the back,” he said. Then rising, “ Well, I’ve 
enjoyed our talk and thanks for helping me out with 
this scheme of the ransoming of Terence, by that 
young crowd. It is funny, but it is significant, and 
they mean business. They will pay a certain sum per 
head into your hands Saturday nights, and it goes 
into the O’Brien fund.” The lawyer hesitated, adding 
in a low voice, “ I need not tell you that I cannot save 
the chap. I know that he did the thing, but I mean 
to try and get a shorter sentence, twenty years per- 


THE MAN ON THE PLACE 


127 


haps,” he shrugged his shoulders, adding, “ and you 
and I know precisely what a man’s life is worth after 
twenty years in prison.” 

“ How about a game of golf on the Wedgewood 
course to-morrow ? You want to get your revenge ? ” 

They shook hands on it; the younger man looked 
into the dark eyes, so full of human kindness, yet so 
austere and lonely. 

“ Watts Shipman,” the young cashier said slowly, 
“ what are you doing up there on that mountain ? 
Anything you shouldn’t—home brew,—sirens ? ” 

The lawyer laughed; he caught up his riding crop. 
“ Come up and see; walk up, do you good to climb 
that far; no wine, no women, not even some of our 
best suppressed literature. I’m—I’m just trying,” the 
lawyer threw back his head and drew a deep breath, 
“ to get hold of life, real life, the kind of thing that 
eludes men until too late they turn and clutch for 
it.” 

The other laughed. “And so you saw wood and 
wash your own dishes? Wonderful realization of 
life! ” 

Shipman’s mouth twisted into appreciation of the 
thing. “ I’ve got a vegetable garden—raise nearly all 
my own produce. I’ve planted it in terraces half 
down the mountainside the way the Greeks do in 
Thessaly. That’s a wonderful scheme for natural ir¬ 
rigation. Anyway,” the lawyer squared away and 
delivered a teasing punch on his friend’s chest, “ I’ve 
got back a good digestion and can stretch like a 
tiger and feel the morning sun along my bare flanks 


128 


UNDER THE LAW 


and—and I can laugh heartily, and I’ve forgotten the 
smell of money and I’ve gone back to a boyish repug¬ 
nance for dirty things and lying things and under¬ 
handed things.” The older man cast a penetrating 
look into the very stuff of his friend. “ Isn’t it up to 
us to create new standards ? ” he asked squarely; “ are 
you satisfied with the old? I’m not! I want clean 
standards, but I want 'em built on facts, not on cal¬ 
endar mottoes.” 

The other shook his head. “ So do I,” he said in a 
low tone, “ but,” he waved his hand to the street out¬ 
side, “ do you see much out there that looks like new 
standards? It’s the calendar motto still.” For a mo¬ 
ment the two men stood in the window reading the 
street like a book on which figures of men and women 
like words told the story of the vicinity. Morris’s 
mild, plainly-dressed women doing the morning’s 
marketing, face, features and walk betokening a cer¬ 
tain niggardliness with life; a complacent adjustment 
to the best that has been instead of an insistence upon 
the best that shall be. Occasional handsome cars 
holding peevish city faces come to the country for a 
great poison herb, Novelty. Young people flitting 
about in droves driven by insatiability and their pe¬ 
culiar disease, leisure and unapplied brains. One or 
two old forms tottering in the sunshine, pleased, in¬ 
terested with little trivial occurrences, yet powerful, 
holding the power of prestige. The usual village 
types, the static parson, the elastic politician, the 
loafers on the corner, the nameless village woman, 
the scoundrel village man, the sanctimonious gossips, 


THE MAN ON THE PLACE 


129 


the schools at twelve pouring out of their hoppers 
the little victims of all whatever good or ill might be; 
up and down the streets, these forms, symbols of 
life, moved and went about their business. But no 
matter what they spelled in between they wrote ir¬ 
revocably on the pavements, Greed, and also Fear, 
and Popularity. They did not write Progress. 

Watts, his dark face turned on the others, looked 
inquiringly. “ The same as Athens under Pericles, I 
suppose ? ” he questioned. “ The great souls come and 
go and agonize and cry in the wilderness, and the 
little souls determine what shall be.” He held out his 
hand once more and the other gripped it. 

“ You talk like a man-Cassandra,” the cashier 
grumbled, “ but Fm coming up on your old mountain 
top to hear some more of your wild stuff.” 

As Shipman passed down the bank steps he saw 
the Bogart car sail by and the two tarns, the red and 
the blue, bobbed gaily at him. “ See you at the dance 
next Saturday.” It was Minga who called this care¬ 
lessly. It was the same Minga who a few nights ago 
on the mountain top had told Watts Shipman she 
hated him. Now her vivid face framed in its blowing 
curls looked calm appreciation. The Bunch were 
“ for” Watts; also the big club dance was in the air; 
her instinct for collecting partners bade her forget 
the cigarette episode. Watts, while he raised his eye¬ 
brows, gestured enthusiastically. Sard also waved her 
hand, and the flash of her deep eyes got to the man in 
a way she might not have intended. For a moment 
he stood and looked after them down the principal 


130 


UNDER THE LAW 


little street of Morris. It was the blue tam-o'-shanter 
that still filled his vision. 

“ Blue ran the flash across," he quoted thought¬ 
fully. But it was not of blue violets that the great 
lawyer was thinking; it was of personality, of per¬ 
sonality that was like a flame, flashing across dullness 
and smugness and cheap pride, to what cost? Watts 
Shipman, climbing to his mountain top, questioned, 
for no man knew better than he the painful cost of 
honest personality. 


CHAPTER XIII 


PEARS AND POETRY 

Out toward the rear of the Judge’s place there 
were garden paths set about with horny fruit trees. 
A small plot of low-growing vegetables; a strip of turf 
and a square of bean poles, made a jungle of kitchen 
produce. As the season advanced, early summer 
pears of a soft yellow, rosy-cheeked sort, began to 
hang in globules on the gray-flaked trees. Here Col¬ 
ter sometimes worked under the Judge’s snapped 
comments, or sat at luncheon hour, preferring to eat 
here rather than in the comfortable kitchen; and here, 
because of its almost jungle-like inaccessibility, Sard, 
wandering from the house, would sometimes sit in 
the long slumberous grasses and read. No one else 
cared much for the vegetable plot nor for the yellow 
pears. Miss Aurelia stayed away on the ground of 
wasps; the Judge found that the grass ruined his 
highly polished boots; the cook and the waitresses had 
prejudices connected with snakes, but Sard wondered 
if the “ man on the place ” ever saw, as she, lying on 
her back, sometimes saw, the romance of this nook. 
The tent of the blue sky, the silken whir of birds wing¬ 
ing through, the syncopatic throb of life in the grass 
all around, the Dervish-like attitude of the old trees 

I 3 I 


132 


UNDER THE LAW 


holding in faithful remembrance of youth and blos¬ 
soms their honey-filled pots of gold. 

It was at the noon hour that the two girls came to 
pick up windfalls. They waded through the long grass 
lamenting the great dark bruises on the soft pear 
shapes. 

“ One smashing fall, and a whole lovely pear is 
spoiled/’ complained Minga. 

“ Something like people/’ Sard thought; “ one 
bruise makes us say a pear is ‘ spoiled/ A person 
does some one thing that isn’t right, and then as it 
has with Terence, it spreads out and out and we think 
of him not as having his other good qualities, but of 
just that one thing. Terence might have been a good 
horse trainer or a good pianist or a ship’s captain or 
anything that needs recklessness and short swift pur¬ 
pose, but he has done the one great awful thing that 
blots out all those other qualities and that makes him 
for all time just a murderer.” 

The girl thoughtfully stood, her head drooping and 
her face deep with a curious shadow of tragedy that 
was partly inherited. Sard felt sure that somewhere 
in her ancestry were people who cared in some deep 
way for humanity, who agonized and were sorry as she 
was for all the sadness and madness of the world. 
The thought comforted her. Now, as she picked up 
pear after pear and caught sight of Colter kneeling, 
busy putting ashes around the roots of blackberry 
vines, she called to him. 

“Are the blackberries ripening?” 

Colter slowly rose. Minga, standing lost in a stare 



PEARS AND POETRY 


133 


of curiosity, saw the tall, straight, loosely-built figure 
and finely modeled face with its thin and curiously 
yearning line from cheek to jaw. The eyes of a hot 
blue were very intense, and the curious backward 
swath of deep chestnut hair made an unusual setting 
for the chiseling of a face that, while it was still 
young, was curiously marred with suffering, yet had 
something of debonair quality that the girl was too im¬ 
mature to analyze. Minga, hardly knowing why she 
did so, looked at the hands closed easily on the garden 
rake. Even to her crude perception they were dis¬ 
ciplined hands with the signs of other than coarse toil 
upon them. 

Colter, in answering the question, advanced toward 
them. Both girls were conscious of the clean, trim 
set effect of the working shirt on his well-built frame; 
the tie was exact under his soft collar. His voice 
when he spoke was low, with a weak, shaky emphasis, 
but he answered Sard's question interestedly, “ I think 
these berries could be greatly improved. The vines 
have grown full of dead wood. I’ve done a little cut¬ 
ting away, and perhaps with better soil treatment," 
he nodded to the pears, “ they're very fine just now. 
Judge Bogart wants me to take a basket of them up 
to Mrs. Railing. She lives on the upper road, I 
think." 

Perhaps there is nothing so surely indicative of 
certain training and breeding as the pronunciation of 
proper names, particularly names that have R and L 
in them. The foreigner in our country slurs these 
letters with childlike confidence. The badly-bred per- 


134 


UNDER THE LAW 


son, ear untrained to niceties of speech, furs the R 
and gobbles the L and chews his vowels. These are 
the curious unconscious ways by which the American 
shows his contempt of all distinguished nuances. Col¬ 
ter, so the two young girls observed, did none of 
these things. Neither did he employ the over-stressed 
nicety, the too careful method of the person who has 
not always spoken correctly. What he had to say he 
said gently, half thoughtfully. He stood looking at 
the girls without familiarity, but he showed no con¬ 
straint. 

“ I found your book, Miss Bogart.” Colter drew 
the volume out of his coat hanging on a pear tree. 

Sard reached eagerly for it. “ Then I did leave it 
out here! ” 

She turned to Minga. “ I was reading it here the 
day before you came—all this time in the grass, my 
‘ Oxford Book of Verse/ ” Sard, a true book-lover, 
examined the little volume affectionately. “ The 
leaves don’t seem to be hurt, and yet it rained two 
nights ago.” She looked at Colter. “ You took care 
of it?” 

He smiled in a pleased sort of way. “ It was pretty 
well dampened, but I found a way to dry it without 
streaking. I,” he hesitated, “ I know a little about the 
treatment of wet paper.” Colter looked off, knitting 
his brows thoughtfully. 

Minga, uninterested, was turning away, but the 
gardener nodded at the book. “ I’ve been reading 
some things in there I like. I wonder if you would 
let me have it a little longer ? ” 


PEARS AND POETRY 


135 


There was dignity in the man's voice, yet a curious 
pleading note as if he asked to be allowed to hold on 
to something very necessary to him. 

“ I—I once owned this book,” he explained, then 
stood seemingly plunged in thought, hardly noticing 
the two girls who stared at him. 

“ Surely.” Sard made her free gesture as she 
handed him back the little volume. “ Keep it as long 
as you like,” said the girl in friendly fashion, “ and, 
Colter-” 

The man paused, respectfully attentive. 

“ Don't you want some other things to read ? ” 
Sard’s eyes, friendly with interest, were upon him. 
She was unconscious, sympathetic. “ I know Father 
would let you have anything in his library.” 

“ I’ll bet anything Judgie would not,” was Minga’s 
inner comment. 

A curious look came over the man’s face. As he 
stood there, the sunlight on the russet hair, there came 
into his eyes a quality of pleasure and bright response, 
of good will and courteous deference that was the un¬ 
mistakable look of personality. But it was momen¬ 
tary. The two girls, young, not very well versed in 
subtle shades of breeding, stood staring curiously at 
him. Then suddenly they saw the look transform; 
a dull expression, a sort of hunted suspicion settled 
on the sensitive features; and it was only a garden 
hand in baggy trousers and sun-faded gray shirt that 
stood before them; something had faded out of the 
man. 

Faltering at the mystery of it, Sard tried to repeat 



136 


UNDER TEE LAW 


her offer. “I meant,” she said awkwardly, “you 
seemed to care so for books.” 

“ Thank you,” said Colter quietly. “ I will leave 
your book in the kitchen.” 

It was done with so final an air that there was 
nothing for the girl to do but follow Minga out of 
the orchard, but before she left the garden she raised 
her eyes with a swift inquiring look into the strong 
blue ones fixed upon her. What she saw there puz¬ 
zled and dismayed her. A sudden thought set her 
heart to beating quickly. “ Minga,” called Sard sud¬ 
denly, “ Minga, wait for me! ” Startled like a bird, 
the girl sped out of the little garden patch. The two 
hurried toward the house. 

Minga put her hand on Sard’s shoulder; a look of 
frank curiosity and inquiry was on her face. “ Where 
did he get that name Colter ? ” she demanded. 

“ It was printed in the old wreck of a cap he wore, 
but he says it is not his name. But he can’t remember 
his name. Well,” asked Sard breathlessly, “ well, 
what do you think ? ” 

Minga faced the older girl solemnly. " Look here,” 
she demanded, “ what is that creature—who is it— 
where did you pick it up ? ” 

“ Then you felt it, too,” Sard demanded trium¬ 
phantly. “You know he isn’t a common person?” 

Minga shook her head solemnly. “ I don’t know 
what I know,” obstinately, " only it can’t be the Presi¬ 
dent of the United States, you know, and it isn’t any 
kind of foreigner and yet—yet he seems to feel as if 
he were some punkins.” 


PEARS AND POETRY 


137 


“ Then you do see it, too ? ” Sard was exultant. 
She grasped the arm of the other girl. “ Come on up 
to my room in the tower and we can talk. Don’t let 
Aunt Reely join us.” 

“ Are you girls making any arrangements for the 
Saturday night club dance ? ” demanded that lady. 
Miss Aurelia was fresh in a white dress with cuffs 
and collar of intricate embroidery. She wore a chain 
of colorless coral beads. “ This dance will not be like 
the others ‘ in sweaters and tennis shoes/ ” she warned 
them. “ Mrs. Spoyd has been working very hard to 
get the young people to appear well at the dances. 
Now your frock, Sard, needs certain things done to 
it. Mrs. Spoyd thinks you dress too old.” 

“ Oh, gracious! ” Sard threw out her hands in im¬ 
patience. “ My yellow frock is good for a year yet. 
Don’t bother, dear,” she begged. 

“ Now, Sard, I’m not sure,” Miss Aurelia demurred. 
“ Last time you wore it I thought—they wear them so 
short now. Shouldn’t you take it up a little? But I 
don’t know. Of course, Mrs. Spoyd thinks—I—she— 
you-” Minga interfered. 

" Come in and look at my pretty little robe,” she 
invited sweetly. “ Such a jazzy little affair! Straight 
off the Avenue.” 

Minga held up a small bunch of color. “ Perky, 
isn’t it ? ” she wanted to know. “ A little daring, as 
the lady said, but of course, if that’s what people are 
wearing-” Minga made a face of sweet inquiry. 

The twin-petaled blue tunic with its girdle and 
shoulder straps of flame color had two jeweled butter- 




138 


UNDER THE LAW 


flies, one planted below Minga’s little thin chest, the 
other at the base of her supple back. This confec¬ 
tion could have been blown away with a sigh. Miss 
Aurelia heaved that sigh. 

“ Of course, nowadays that cut under the arm is 
what they all wear—very popular. Dearest,” asked 
Miss Aurelia plaintively, “if it should grow cold and 
you wanted an—er—under body or guimpe of any 
kind, I’m sure I could lend you one. And you wear 
so little underneath-” 

Minga, holding the dress close up to her, hung her 
dark curly head on one side. “ Rather nippy,” she 
remarked with satisfaction. “ You think it shows too 
much of me? Oh, no,” comforted Minga, “there’s 
really quite a good deal of me that doesn’t show, but 
don’t worry. Miss Aurelia, nobody will be thinking 
about that. People aren’t as curious about how we’re 
made as they used to be. We all know that we’ve got 
arms and legs and chests and shoulders and ribs and 
things. It isn’t interesting any more! ” 

Saying this Minga unwittingly put her finger on 
what is half truth, that is, that it is the Puritanical 
people of the world who emphasize the harm that is 
done by vulgar thinking and dressing. The prudish 
people think more about vulgarity than the vulgar 
themselves. The way to kill such things is to ignore. 
The fashion, when it has become a fashion, ceases to 
be notable, or even challenging. But its dubious life 
is prolonged by those who seek to curb it. 

Miss Aurelia, with many murmured doubts and 
misgivings, now took Sard’s frock out of its tissue 



PEARS AND POETRY 


139 


paper and pasteboard box. With it went a violet sash 
and violet slippers that Minga scrutinized rather dis¬ 
paragingly. “ She ought to have scarlet slippers and 
scarlet stockings with that yellow/' 

“ It wouldn’t be good taste," said Sard shortly. 

“ But it would be noticed," replied her friend archly, 
“ and you have nice legs, Sard. Now, Aunt Reely," 
Minga held up an accusing finger, “ don’t pretend you 
don’t know that. You do know that Sard has nice 
legs; so does Judgie, so does Dunstan. Why shouldn’t 
the world know ? ’’ 

So the conference on evening dress broke up amid 
Miss Aurelia’s doubts and fears and distressed sense 
of legs. Minga leading, the girls climbed the tower 
room stairs, half restraining their giggles. 

“ If I come down to dinner in that frock Judgie will 
send me to bed without my supper," Minga prophe¬ 
sied; “just the same, he will take several long looks 
to be sure he is right." The restless tongue wagged 
on until Minga became conscious that her comrade 
was not listening to her. She glanced at Sard staring 
out of the window and remembered what they had 
climbed up here for. “ Now tell me about this queer 
critter you’ve got out there. You call him Colter. I’d 
have been willing to bet my engagement ring that was 
not his real name. His real name," said Minga, “ is 
Lancelot Humbug." 

Sard, twisting the shade cord, slowly shook her 
head. “ How do we know ? " she murmured. “ He isn’t 
anything we think he is. I mean what he’s supposed 
to be, but," she looked quickly at Minga, then away, 


140 


UNDER THE LAW 


“ I’ve come to the point where I’d rather not know 
anything. There might be something awful.” The 
girl shivered slightly. “ How do I know ? ” she re¬ 
peated. 

Sard turned eagerly to her friend. “ Minga, do you 
get things, have them come to you, without think¬ 
ing? Do you ever just know things through and 
through without being told, you know, sort of sense 
a thing ? ” 

Minga, going to the dressing-table and taking the 
ivory-backed nail buffer, searched about for some 
polishing powder. “ When you start off like that,” 
the girl remarked, “ I always find some light hand 
labor. Go on, Sard, honey; I can get my nails beauti¬ 
fully done while you give me the last Sard-slush.” 

“ Oh, you fuss so over your nails,” said the other 
girl irritably. “ I think it’s bad taste, somehow. I 
can’t bear these women who take every moment they 
get to compare their hair and teeth and nails and 
fingers; there’s something monkey-like about it, sort 
of like savages. I suppose,” Sard laughed a little 
ironically, “ if I had nothing else to do but sit on the 
sand and smear oil on my skin I’d be interested in 
such things, too.” 

“ Whew! ” whistled Minga imperturbably, “ you 
are all rubbed up! You foam, you fairly sizzle!” 
She went over to her friend and archly explained. 

“ It’s only my sweet womanly concern for my lover 
—dearrrest—Tawny has telephoned; only engaged six 
dances. I think he’s slipping away from me, and I 
don’t want to lose him, not when they’re doing that 


PEARS AND POETRY 


141 


queer * bubble and squeak step ’ and he's the only 
man who can do it. Tawny," explained Minga, “ must 
see his ring glittering upon the most feminine little 
hand in the world. You see I have a feeling that he 
wants to pass me up for Cynthia or Gertrude; these 
two have been corresponding with him, and he sent 
them candy last week— Blaaaaaa! ” 

Minga, with a gesture of disgust, dropped her eyes. 
She waved her buffer in the air, fastening her eyes on 
her friend. “ Does he think he can fool me that 
way ? Ahem, I'm talking." The other girl's head was 
turned away, the eyes staring in troubled fixity at the 
river. “ If anyone were to fall out of the hearse and 
ask me," said Minga with tender solemnity, “ I should 
reply that I did not think you were interested." 

It was the quality of essential good nature in this 
girl that made her loved. All Minga's idle words, her 
flippancies and inconsistencies seemed to conceal some 
sound core of being that made her not willing to 
wound. Now, she went over and brought her hand 
down on Sard’s back. 

“ Minga! " The other started irritably and edged 
away. 

“ Oh, pshaw!" said the little person with bobbed 
hair. “ Sard, don’t be silly; you act like Mannikin 
Maude, the Temperamental Tempest. Now in good, 
plain American what's the matter ? ’’ Minga, turning 
her friend’s head to meet her eyes, pronounced her 
verdict. 

“ Say, look here, you've—you’ve been no good since 
that night on the mountain with Watts Shipman; he 


142 


UNDER THE LAW 


snubbed you, I suppose, the way he snubbed us all. 
Well, what do you care? He’s only a silly old bache¬ 
lor. Pooh! ” Minga addressed her finger nails, “ I 
could eat into his heart like a maggot if I only wanted 

to-” She slapped Sard on the back again. 

“ Ooooo—but you’re gloomy. Brace up, cheer up, 
swell up, the worst is yet to come! ” 

No one could withstand this absurd rallying. The 
girl at the window smiled in spite of herself, but she 
shook her head. 

“ Minga,” in a low voice, “ that man out there is 
somebody! ” 

“ Bllllaaaaa.” Minga rolled in despairing disappro¬ 
bation on the couch. “ I know it, but it’s not my af¬ 
fair. I knew that was what was going on in your 
head. Lawrence Multimillionaire, the missing heir of 
Deepcroft Manor—Oh! ” Minga wailed, “ to think of 
you, Sard, the steady, the highbrow, the blessed Dam- 
osel, to come to a thing like this! Honest, I do think 
the movies turn our heads when—when we least ex¬ 
pect it. I thought I noticed that the garbage man 
wore a fraternity pin,” she jeered, “ and surely the 
iceman quoted from the * Rubaiyat ’ yesterday morn- 
mg. 

But Sard would not catch at this mood, she only 
put aside the teasing hand that ^weaked her hair and 
fussed over her belt buckle. At last, she said half 
under her breath, “If it is amnesia, if he himself 
doesn’t know who he is, where he belongs, think of 
the horror of that! ” 

There was a whir and chug of an arrested car on 


PEARS AND POETRY 


143 


the drive under the window. Dunstan with klaxon 
and voice hailed them. “ Oh, you Minga, put out your 
head. Say, goils, we’ve got a notion. The Gertrude 
bunch is going to pull off that canoe trip up the Hack¬ 
ensack River this afternoon—supper and a few ghost 
stories, toasted marshmallows, wit, laughter, and 
moonlight. Want to go?” 

Minga looked out, eyeing him critically. “ Dunce, 
why do you wear a sweater that color? It’s awful for 
you; you should wear nothing but soft tans and yel¬ 
low to go with your doggy eyes.” 

“ Humph! ” said Dunstan, “ that’ll do for my doggy 
eyes.” He got out and went around to the back of 
the car and took out a kit of tools. “ Now I don’t 
want to be bothered with the drool of an engaged 
flapper,” he declared; “ but I say, do you want to go 
Dn this joy jump? I mean it.” 

The girls leaning out consulted each other with 
their eyes. “ We were going to wash our hair,” de¬ 
murred Sard, “ and then we promised to make fudge 
for Aunt Reely, and then,” said Minga solemnly, 
“ I promised to show Aunt Reely a knitting 
stitch.” 

“ Ha,” the youth below looked up and grinned— 
“ in other words you don’t want to go, or in still 
other words you don’t like the Gertrude and Cin 
combination. Oh, Sard, you’re so noble and literary,” 
the brother said in mock admiration, “ you express 
things so well. You—she—I—they—it—he—she,” 
Dunstan dropped the role of Aunt Aurelia and con¬ 
cluded shortly, "Well, why should you go? Who 


144 


UNDER THE LAW 


wants a couple of old hens washing their hair? The 
road-hog Gert and Cin’ll do all right.” 

Minga thought the thing over. “ There’s nothing to 
see on the Hackensack,” she misdoubted, “ just old 
water and moss and trees and things.” 

“Oh, ain’t there?” said Dunstan, airily. “Well, I 
don’t tell everything to ladies who don’t care for my 
society or my friends. I don’t speak of pink pearls, 
and here I raced all the way home and punctured a 
tire to get you two old crones because I thought you’d 
like to go.” 

The two crones, slightly crestfallen, once more sur¬ 
veyed each other. 

“ Which men did you pick out for us ? ” at last 
inquired Sard. 

Dunstan pushed back his cap; his brow was hot 
with his philanthropic offer to promote a picnic. 

“ Well,” he divulged, a little unwillingly, “ of 
course, Gertrude wanted me, and Cinny had a chap 
coming out on an afternoon train, dunno who, and 
then we thought, well, the girls thought, that Sperry, 
the owl-eyed lawyer, would do for you, Sard, and 
Minga, well, Balky Popham sort of butted in and 
chose Minga.” 

“ That settles it, you see.” Minga grinned politely 
with all her little teeth. “ We’re going to wash our 
hair! ” 

“ Oh, my faith! ” groaned the youth below. “ Say, 
you two are a couple of Convent Coolies.” Looking up 
wrathfully he tried to face them down with this 
epithet, but to face a person down while looking up- 


PEARS AND POETRY 


145 


ward is difficult: at last he gave it up. “ Righto! ” he 
said bitterly. “ Righto! Then I get the fair Cynthia 
with her little bag of dope and Gertrude with her 
gloomy gaze, and we side-track the others and pass 
on to our own private funeral.” 

There was something in the young fellow’s tone as 
he said this that roused both girls; half protesting, 
half laughing, they leaned out. “ No, wait, Dunce! ” 
they pleaded, “ let’s talk it over. Perhaps—wait— 

Dunce—Dunce-” but there was the angry whir of 

the car and Dunce was gone. 

Minga’s face was scarlet, her eyes gleamed. She 
turned to Sard. “ Well, now you see what we’ve done. 
We were idiots. He was asking us because—be¬ 
cause - Sard, you know what those girls are! ” 

Sard, brows knitted, was self-conscious. “ I ought 
to have realized,” she said slowly, “ but perhaps it’s 

just- Oh, dear, Minga, what were we thinking 

of? Dunstan has done his best to sort of good-na¬ 
turedly keep away from Cinny and Gertrude! My, 
she’s horrible for a nice boy.” 

“ And they’ll work up a stag line with him for to¬ 
morrow night,” said Minga. “ Oh, oh, oh! ” she 
stamped her foot. “ They’ll have the pick of the 
dances and all the extras. You know how they’ll 
work it, Sard. Why didn’t you think quickly ? ” 

The other girl ran her hand lovingly over the curly 
head. “ Such a little pepper-pot; why didn’t you 
think ? I thought you didn’t want to go, Minga; you’re 
so funny, nobody will ever know what you want.” 

“ Well, I will,” asserted Minga vehemently, “ that 





146 


UNDER TEE LAW 


is, I’ll know what I want when I want it and now I 
want everlastingly to keep that Gertrude thing from 
our nice boys and from Tawny, don’t you see, Sard? ” 
Minga’s eyes widened virtuously. “ She’s setting 
traps for my fiance.” 

Sard threw back her head. “ Oh,” she pealed, “ oh, 
you are too dreadful. I give you up. Come on down 
to lunch.” 

The luncheon gong sounded its three soft ascend¬ 
ing vibrations. The girls, consulting, went down arm- 
in-arm. At the table they talked of the large chrys¬ 
anthemums they had seen at a flower show and of a 
new way to serve butter, and Aunt Aurelia thought, 
“ I am so glad to see them getting interested in lady¬ 
like things. It is fortunate they did not go on with 
college; they have just enough ideas, I think.” 


CHAPTER XIV 


PINK PEARLS 

People who like to dream geologic dreams of the 
figures and forms that moved in the long night of 
ancient Chaos are fond of tracing out some connec¬ 
tion between the Hudson River and its neighbor, the 
woodland winding Hackensack. Not much narrower 
than the Tiber, and certainly wider than the little 
trickles that are left of the classic rivers of Greece, 
it has little personality for the general inhabitants of 
New York or New Jersey. Only to those who make 
friends of the hidden and search out the obscure is 
revealed the romance of the little river. The Hudson, 
grown conventional and well turned out, like a hand¬ 
some mother, accustomed to hotel life, has a daughter, 
always at her side, yet elusive and wayward. These 
two, separated by mountain walls and palisade doors 
and lovely stretches of dreaming hills, meadows and 
road-crossed flats, have some common secret origin 
that they cannot alter nor disguise. 

The nobler river is, however, destined to become 
the Path of Commerce, the trail of the great white 
Foot of Civilization, while the little Hackensack, 
punctuated here and there with history of the 
Colonials and with midnight escapes and sorties, 
winding by old sandstone houses with ancient roofs, 
still keeps reticence, a lovely inaccessibility. Screened 

i47 


148 


UNDER THE LAW 


by maples, green hemlocks and alders in some haunts, 
in others she is a broad tranquil sheet of green crystal 
or a copper sunset path that leads into vine-hung 
bowers or spreads out into bare flats where the reeds 
rear tasseled heads. 

Here the blue herons keep their silent vigils, the 
eagles have nests; here the muskrats drag blue mussel 
shells along the mossy banks and scatter the tiny pink 
pearls that sometimes reward hunters, who follow the 
azure iridescence. The cardinal flower and blue 
gentian blaze their quiet little trails along the sedges 
and Indian pipe glimmers in the back thicket. 
Pitcher plant and sundew, a thousand tiny lanterns 
of multi-colored berries, all the lush tenting and blos¬ 
somy fragrance of grapes and hazelnut, and a hun¬ 
dred secret water plants—these are the things that go 
on living, where the birds bathe and the snakes lie 
languid and the turtles meet for their boggy confer¬ 
ences. 

Sard's plan was to make the trip up the Hacken¬ 
sack by themselves. After lunch she stole out to the 
garage to find Colter, who was washing the depot 
car. 

“ Anyone using this this afternoon?" Sard indi¬ 
cated the long black body. 

The man paused. He shut off the hose. “ I think 
not. Judge Bogart has gone off with a friend for golf; 
Mr. Dunce took the roadster." There were invariably 
long pauses between Colter's sentences. “ You wish 
to use it ? " 

“ Yes.” Sard thought a moment. “We want to 


PINK PEARLS 


149 


join Mr. Dunstan’s party up the Hackensack. You 
spoke of having been up that stream once, and said 
you knew where we could get a canoe. Would you, 
could you take us up ? ” 

Squeezing out a sponge, Colter stood there without 
answering. He looked at the dripping sponge so 
dazedly that Sard thought he had not heard. “ You 
know how to manage a canoe?” she asked. “ We 
could get along with one boat, going up-stream to¬ 
ward the big race above West Morris. Why, Col¬ 
ter, what is the matter ? ” 

“ Going up-stream in a boat,” repeated Colter 
thickly. “ That’s all over; going up a woodland 
stream in a boat. No—coming down—with him— 
dead! ” The man did not look at her. “ Where— 
where was it ? ” he asked. He stood clenching his 
hands, his eyes staring; he turned, not seeing the girl, 
though his deep fire-blue eyes burnt into hers. 
“ Where was it ? ” he asked tensely. 

The thing was so strange in its utter irrelevance 
that Sard, though she had seen him like this before, 
could hardly keep from rubbing her eyes. As in a 
dream she saw Colter’s hand go out; it was as if he 
tried to push something away. “ A boat,” he mut¬ 
tered, “ a boat and a stream that was walled with 
vines. Wait—wait! ” He breathed rapidly, his head 
lifted as if he desperately tried to recall something; 
then he suddenly turned his eyes on the girl, shook 
his head and groaned. He passed his hand over his 
eyes and looked at her, smiling very gently. 

“ I couldn’t get it,” he said simply, half apologetic- 


150 


UNDER THE LAW 


ally; “sometimes a little of it comes in parts. Did I 
startle you ? ” he asked with a look of concern. 

“ No—no-” she stammered. He had been like 

that the day she had found him sitting with his feet 
in the gutter muttering to himself. She waited with 
self-possession that surprised her, then asked quietly, 
“ Was it something you wanted to tell me, something 
that you remembered ? ” 

The man looked at her, his eyes now clear and 
rational. “ No,” gently, “ I did not remember. You 
see that is my trouble, I do not know. I can remem¬ 
ber nothing, nothing connected, not even who I 
» 

am. 

“You do not know who you are?” asked the girl 
awed. “ Isn't there a book or a watch or something 
with your name ? ” 

But he seemed not to hear her. He stood there 
lost in thought; finally, with a sigh, he seemed to give 
it up and turned to her. “ What time shall I have the 
car around. Miss Bogart ? ” 

“ At four.” The girl watched him for a moment 
and she said, “We wanted you to go with us. We 
wanted you to take charge of the expedition.” She 
was a little uncertain. 

“ Certainly, Miss Sard.” Colter said it gravely, 
cheerfully, with the machine-like acquiescence of the 
trained gardener or chauffeur. Sard turned and 
walked away, and he as quietly went back to his 
work, but through the young being, in that strange 
phase of a woman's mind and body that we call “ in¬ 
tuition,” went the baffling cadence of a man's voice, 



PINK PEARLS 151 

a cadence of doubt, terror and then the patient and 
controlled, “ Very well, Miss Sard.” 

Something of tradition in the girl tried to drown 
it. Dismayed, she realized how this thing possessed 
her, how this voice rang in her physical being, 
“ Very well, Miss Sard.” She drew herself up. Was 
she, then, a woman of birth, a girl of two years* col¬ 
lege training to be affected by the mere voice of a 
vagabond, a tramp, an unshaven ne’er-do-well? 

As the two girls got into their camping things, Sard 
outlined the afternoon’s programme. “ And I want 
to suggest—let’s see what you think—I don’t sup¬ 
pose we should treat Colter quite like a common per¬ 
son; well, one can see that he’s not exactly a man 
of all work.” 

Minga pinned back the flap of her scarlet tam-o’- 
shanter. “ It would be improper to treat him other¬ 
wise,” Minga decided with what for her was rather 
austere decision. “ He isn’t common exactly, but 
queer, and that’s worse; Sard,” went on Minga with 
an air of superiority, “ I don’t see how you could 
have picked him up like that and carted him in your 
nice clean car to that boarding-house place; Dunce 
says you all but helped carry him and gave directions 
and all—Ugh—and then lied to your father, pretend¬ 
ing all this about a common workman.” 

Sard’s face darkened. “ I didn’t lie,” she said in a 
low voice. “ I picked him up because I had seen him 
there sitting, hour after hour, with that queer dazed 
look, so wretched, shaken and awful. I’ll admit he 
looked dreadful, but somehow his eyes didn’t look 


152 


UNDER THE LAW 


dirty; something that was awfully clean spoke 
through all his wretchedness, and when I heard him 
tell those stupid policemen that he ‘ couldn’t remem¬ 
ber/ his voice got to me—got to me-” Sard 

restlessly wandered about the room unable to express 
what she meant. “ I suddenly felt that I, well, I 
knew him, and,” announced the girl defiantly, “ I've 
somehow felt that way ever since. I just knew. I 
admit it’s queer, Minga.” 

“ It’s queer, all right,” Minga said succinctly, “ and 
so are you.” She stuck her scarf inside her boyish 
little jacket and struck an attitude in her boots and 
knickerbockers. 

“ Fluffy Fiddlestick, the film heroine, is now going 
to give the Hackensack the once-over,” she announced. 
“Talk about screen stuff; all this that you say about 
this tramp man, Sard, is worse than any screen story 
I ever saw, and you so demure! It isn’t lying, but 
it’s letting things lie for you; you got that bank per¬ 
son at Morris to suggest Colter to Judgie. Does Aunt 
Reely know you’re responsible for his being here? 
A regular Gentleman John, and nobody but you in 
the secret.” Minga, with quite an injured air, picked 
up her wrist-watch and fastened it on; she eyed her¬ 
self in the mirror. “ Do I need lipstick, no? Would 
the turtles appreciate red lips ? ” 

“Well, you do know he’s not a common man?” 
Sard asked, obstinately. 

“ Mercy, I don’t know anything,” retreated Minga 
easily. “ Now, how do we get by Auntie’s bower in 
these knickers ? ” 



PINK PEARLS 


153 


As they slipped together down the back stairs, Sard 
chuckled. “ The funny part of it is Aunt Reely is 
reconciled to knickers; so is that queer Mrs. Spoyd. 
You see, they know that the English countesses and 
princesses wear them, and they sit studying all the 
different women’s knickers in the fashion sheets and 
secretly wonder if they couldn’t wear them them¬ 
selves. I heard Mrs. Spoyd say, dreamingly, ‘ Well, 
my dearrrrr, I suppose we shall soon have stylish 
Stouts in the—er—camping trousers also,’ and Aunt 
Reely sighed, ‘ We must try to adapt ourselves.’ 
They are getting to be very popular! ” 

The girls went giggling down the steps and out the 
kitchen way, Sard glancing at the kitchen clock. “ We 
ought to be able to get up-stream before Dunce and 
his party; they’re starting way down-stream back of 
Spencerville. I’m going to embark above the West 
Morris station; here’s supper and the tea basket, and 
I’ve told Maggie and Dora to have something hot in 
case we come in late.” 

It was like college days, like bacon bats and beach 
parties and Saturday hikes, and the girls’ spirits rose. 
They bowed brightly to Colter, appearing with the 
depot car. In some way the man, clean and shaven, 
long limbed, clad neatly in faded old shirt and khaki 
trousers with dark tie carefully tied, was not a dis¬ 
agreeable figure as he gathered up the luncheon things 
and thermos bottles and waited for Sard’s signal. 
The girl herself took the wheel, and Minga perched 
beside her. The novelty of the thing worked on the 
restless mind of the girl under the scarlet tam-o’- 


154 


UNDER THE LAW 


shanter. “ Wait till Cinny sees this,” Minga mur¬ 
mured nervously, “ and—and Gertrude! How’ll they 
take the Colter addition to a party—he really looks all 
right, doesn’t he? Those queer clothes set right, and 
his hair is brushed back like other people’s, and his 
hands look good and kind, somehow. How old do 
you suppose he is ? ” she whispered. “ About twice as 
old as Dunce ? ” 

“Hush!” Sard turned a sharp corner carefully. 
“ About thirty-seven, maybe forty.” The eyes of both 
the girls widened at this antique possibility, but Sard 
remembered that there had been a professor at college 
who had seemed like a boy, almost as young as Dunce, 
and he was thirty-five. 

There was a curious lift in Sard’s head, in her eyes 
a flying look of adventure; her figure, light, alert, sat 
at the steering gear with a look of power and repose; 
her wistful profile had lines that were resolute 
and composed, as if waiting for some stuff of life on 
which to try their power; all about her in the windy 
press of their speed was the buoyant look of physical 
action, green trees, brown vital roads like veins full 
of the blood of Wanderlust and adventure; like them, 
the girl was ardent, fresh, a thing pure and intense as 
fire, yet sober and clean as water. In her belted coat 
and rough hat and the flying strands of hair, she drove 
in confident direction, over the damp woodland roads, 
over the swamps and bridges of the Morris turnpike, 
a very figure of Advance, so thought a man, who 
stood to let them pass, then let his arm fly up in hasty 
flourish. “ Winged Victory ! ” he breathed. 


PINK PEARLS 


155 


“ Hello! ” Watts' hand flew to his hat and he 
waved it; then as the girls, with friendly greeting, 
slowed down, he turned back to parley. “ Hold up 
your hands," he ordered gruffly. “ Give me your wrist- 
watches; no quarter." 

It was all part of their feeling of quest and ad¬ 
venture, and they liked the tall lawyer for the little 
highway gesture as he stood there, his face lined with 
dust and sunburn, his costume showing rents and 
wrinkles of cross-country walking. The two wide¬ 
awake faces smiled at him as he glanced tentatively 
at the gray-clad figure at the back of the car, but there 
was no introduction, though the lawyer paused for it. 
The man sitting there did not turn, but had a quiet 
position of relaxation. Sard reddened slightly. 

“ We're off on a lark," they explained. “ Have you 
seen Dunce and his gang? We hope we've stolen a 
march on them; we're further up the river, we 
think." 

“ Going for some of those little pink pearls," ex¬ 
plained Minga, “ and we want to get ahead of 'em." 

Shipman’s amused eyes ran over the outfit. The 
excited girls, the silent man with tea basket and the 
thermos bottles; he looked sympathetic. 

“ Little pink pearls ?" eyeing Minga teasingly, 
“ are you going to pick them off the trees, or take 
them out of the turtles' mouths? How much food 
have you there, anything substantial ? " 

“ Loads," they assured him; “ we’re stocked up for 
the Bible multitude; we have loaves and fishes and 
everything." 


156 


UNDER THE LAW 


Still the older man hesitated. It was a little au¬ 
dacious, but he tried his luck at playing “ young.” 

“ Take me with you ? ” glancing at the averted 
face of Colter and questioningly raising his eyebrows. 

The two girls accepted his self-invitation gaily. 
“ Take you, won’t we though? We need another 
man.” Sard glanced back at the figure in the back. 
“ This is Colter, whom we brought to help us with the 
boat and all that; he knows the Hackensack.” 

Watts Shipman nodded in his usual friendly way, 
and Minga, wide-eyed, observed that Colter’s recogni¬ 
tion was of the same order, a quiet, courteous friend¬ 
liness. The little figure in the scarlet cap leaned ea¬ 
gerly toward the famous lawyer. Shipman and 
Minga seemed on surprisingly good terms. Purposely 
the lawyer kept any memory of their last encounter 
out of his manner and eyes. 

“ Do you really know where the pink pearls are ? ” 

For answer Watts, standing in the road, took a 
little phial from his pocket and displayed it. On a bed 
of cotton were four or five tiny seed pearls of cream 
color and soft rose. The two girls opened their eyes 
with delight. 

“ Goodness,” the worldly Minga was impressed. 
“ Why don’t Tiffany or somebody come up and get 
these? There might be a fortune in the Hacken¬ 
sack.” 

“ They’ve had men up here,” interposed Colter 
quietly, “ but there wasn’t enough in it for them.” 

The party turned and looked at him questioningly; 
Colter took the phial Shipman handed him. “ You 


PINK PEARLS 


157 


see, they never grow very large/’ he explained, exam- 
ing a pearl that rolled into his hand. “ There is some 
substance lacking, but whatever it is, the reason isn’t 
known, I think.” 

“ Just the same, it will be fun to hunt for them.” 
Shipman was as eager as a boy. “ I have an extra 
skiff at that little house you see by the bridge up 
yonder; suppose I bring that; we can have a flotilla,” 
he nodded to Colter, who nodded back. 

“ Surely,” he agreed. 

The voice, courteous of inflection, assured in enun¬ 
ciation, arrested the lawyer’s attention as it had ar¬ 
rested Sard’s. As the girls slipped to the ground, 
moving about the car, captivating in their trim camp¬ 
ing costumes, the lawyer, his eye taking in their as¬ 
sured grace, the lithe precision of their movements, 
swept a curious eye over their companion. 

The newly-shaven chin, the dark red hair brushed 
back and hands with nails that had once been well¬ 
shaped and cared for, mystified him with the sense 
of hidden identity, and yet he got no sense of pur¬ 
poseful concealment. Somehow the man seemed like 
a person who moved in a dream; what he said and 
did was done automatically, as if the Self had no 
abiding interest in his activities. The lawyer was 
conscious of a certain sense of mystery as he turned to 
assist with the tea basket and things. 

“ Can I help ? ” 

“ Thanks, if you’ll bear a hand with those bottles.” 
As Shipman grasped the things held out to him he 
looked for a moment full into the other’s eyes, eyes 


158 UNDER THE LAW 

that met his quite quietly, too, but with an awful look 
of question. 

“ I am a gentleman,” said those eyes—“ do you 
know me, have you ever seen me —who am I? ” 


CHAPTER XV 


REVELATIONS 

The two skiffs, now paddled, now poled, glided 
along the green-bronze waters of the woodland shores; 
the girls, sitting in the stern, were silent, this partly 
from Shipman’s suggestion. Minga had started her 
customary chatter, but the lawyer laid his big hand 
on her shoulder. She looked up to find him, finger 
on lips, dark eyes smiling into hers. “If you want to 
see things,” he whispered, “ you’ll have to be as dumb 
as a silent policeman.” Minga, remembering the night 
on South Mountain, gave a slight involuntary shiver 
which the man noticed. 

“ Child! ” exclaimed Shipman suddenly. He 
looked long and intently into the little face; he must 
have seen something rare like the blue shell of an 
eager little soul-bird, a little shell that must not be 
broken too roughly. “ Forgive me for everything,” 
he said contritely; “ you must think me an awful sort 
of brute. Talk as much as you like, you rosebud. I 
only meant, well, there are things to see if one is 
quiet, you know! ” 

Minga smiled back into his face. It was an un¬ 
certain little smile, shorn of her usual gay sparkle and 
challenge or the repartee of what was known as “ the 
Minga line.” Seeing this, the lawyer removed his 
hand from her shoulder quickly; he reached for his 

i59 


160 


UNDER TEE LAW 


pipe and tobacco and lighted up for his abstemious 
afternoon smoke. Minga idly watched his deliberate 
movements, the curious impression that he gave of 
inherent remorseless power, of so physical and 
dynamic a kind fed by so enormous a reservoir of 
understanding and self-control that the girl might well 
feel in awe of it. 

Paddle in hand, Shipman stood in the bow of the 
boat. He dug softly into the deep flow of the water; 
they turned the slow curve of an island, rounding 
afresh into long avenues of alders and elderberry and 
toward the purple gloom of hanging swamp maples. 
Colter’s boat, Sard leaning eagerly forward, followed. 
Now and then the two men would halt and point to 
some half distinguished object, a great gray hornet’s 
nest whorled like a ball of paper cinders in the thicket, 
a blue heron standing motionless, a mud hen sitting 
heavily in a dead tree. The long line of empty mussel 
shells was strung like big beads over the cushions of 
soft moss; a muskrat swam across the stream; a chip¬ 
munk, sitting on his haunches and munching like a 
cooky, a dark-brown mushroom—here and there clus¬ 
ters of scarlet amanita, yellow fungus like sponges, the 
delicate hanging Clintonia bells, or a thousand filmy 
patches of moss, where little trumpets blew and coral 
lights glowed, and little banners and transparencies 
marked the tiny march of plant progress. 

Colter, steadily sculling his flat-bottomed craft, 
looked with evident delight on these things—his gaunt 
form stood steadily on its long legs, there was de¬ 
termined, practiced deliberation in his movements and 


REVELATIONS 


161 


his were the eyes that first discovered this and that 
rarity. The intense gaze of the man seemed 
to burn into the dim forest walls of summer, his ears 
caught every subdued note, he peered like a sort of 
necromancer at a spider web, at a snail lethargically 
climbing the mud bank or a patch of sun dew, all its 
little gummy tentacles alert for fly-capture. 

Minga, turning once, heard him mutter something 
under his breath; she stole a startled glance at him as 
her own boat sped along, and leaned forward. 

“ Don't go too fast, we mustn’t get too far ahead 
of Sard; I don’t like to leave her alone with that— 
that man.” 

Shipman raised his eyebrows. " Why,” using her 
undertones, “ isn't he the chauffeur ? He’s all right, 
isn’t he ? ” 

Minga was mysterious; a curious womanly accent 
of responsibility sat strangely on this little figure, with 
pretty legs in trim knickerbockers and puttees, and 
dark head of bobbed hair. 

“ He’s just plain queer,” objected Minga. “ You’d 
never guess that the Judge and Miss Reely know 
nothing about him; that man, you see, is one of 
Sard’s pickups.” 

“ Pickups.” Shipman frowned, while he smiled. 

Minga luxuriated in the irregularity of the thing. 
“ Oh,” she protested, “ you may think you know Sard, 
but you don’t—nobody,” said Minga solemnly, 
“ knows her as I do. Of course,” the little bobbed 
head shook wisely, “ Sard wouldn’t do anything—er 
—well, you know.” 


162 


UNDER THE LAW 


Shipman tried to control his humor. “ Of course 
not/’ he echoed. 

“ Just the same," Minga was dramatic, “ she goes 
around picking up queer people and sick dogs and 
babies and spending her money on them and getting 
them into hospitals and oh, awful things/' said Minga, 
darkly. “ She knows girls that haven't husbands and 

well-" she gave a gesture which though vague was 

eloquent. 

The lawyer led her on. “ So Miss Sard picked up 
this vagabond." 

“ Well, maybe not a vagabond," Minga looked over 
her shoulder warily, “ a tramp, sort of, and he might 
be crazy. I heard him," she went on mysteriously, 
“ use Latin words a moment ago and then look around, 
oh, so strangely." 

“ Sure thing," Shipman, with equal solemnity, 
nodded; “ anyone who uses Latin or Greek these days 
is mad, of course; but it’s a divine madness. I use 
it myself. I'm a little mad, you know." He bent 
amused eyes on his companion. “ How did you know 
it was Latin ? " 

Minga looked back a little exultantly; the coquette 
in her never very far away from the surface, rose to 
his teasing. “ I know some," announced this young 
person with a toss; “ for instance," Minga became 
rather glib at the game they were playing, this was 
her “ line," “ I know all the conjugations of the 
verb * amo.'" 

“ Well done," said Shipman idly. He smiled per¬ 
functorily, but the great lawyer did not seem par- 



REVELATIONS 


163 


ticularly anxious to take up this gay little gauntlet; he 
was thoughtful, prodding the creek water rather 
viciously. “ You think Colter might be a college man 
in disguise/’ he said abruptly, “ wandering around 
studying sociological problems, no? That sort of ' 
thing is a fad these days, isn’t it?” Just then Sard 
hailed them. 

“ I hear the Gertrud e-bunch down-stream,” she 
called in laughing triumph. “ We’ve beat them to it; 
that’s Dunce’s queer yelp. Now,” said the girl 
briskly, “ suppose we get out on the shores of this 
big ‘ race ’ ahead here and make a fire and have our 
supper and wait until they turn up, then we can give 
them coffee, and we can all go down-stream in a pro¬ 
cession and slam home in the machines together.” 

Minga nodded approvingly; the youngster had been 
a little overawed by the society of a man so much 
older than herself; now the prospect of a few young 
howlers and slangers of her own set revived her. 

“ The very thing,” she said. At the same time Minga 
realized that it would impress Gertrude and Cinny to 
see her being propelled in a skiff by the well-known 
barrister, Watts Shipman. All her funny little appre¬ 
ciations of life were concentrated upon keeping Ship- 
man apparently her slave until these ladies should ap¬ 
pear. They would think him awfully old, of course, 
but then, he was a famous lawyer and “ popular,” 
or as Minga construed him, “ important,” and that 
would be good for Gertrude and Cinny. The small 
intriguer waited in a highly feminine manner for 
Shipman to assist her out of the skiff. 


164 


UNDER THE LAW 


Suddenly there was an exclamation from Colter, 
who had found a large mussel hanging on a half-sub¬ 
merged tree trunk. He methodically opened it with 
his knife and had just cut out from the jelly-like 
substance within a smooth oval as big as a grain of 
barley. “ A beauty,” breathed Colter, as he bent 
soberly down to the water to wash it. The group 
watched him take a bit of chamois from his pocket 
and polish it; somehow Sard was not surprised to see 
the long sensitive hand go into another pocket and 
produce a magnifying glass. The girl, who had been 
watching him gravely, felt a curious exultation that 
the other man should see her protege so detached and 
calm in his movements. She looked curiously into his 
face, noting with a kind of pang, a wonder, all the 
lines of sweetness and self-control, laid over with a 
strange patience. She felt triumphant—suddenly Col¬ 
ter turned toward her, and with a little bow, put in her 
hand the little misshapen pearl. “ A shape like folded 
light, embodied air,” he murmured. 

Sard stared. “ Why, that is Emerson.” Then won- 
deringly, “ You read that in my little book? ” 

He smiled. Colter's smile was pleasant, with a row 
of not too regular, but very white teeth. “ I used to 
know it by heart,” he confessed; he seemed to forget 
Shipman and Minga, standing there observing. Once 
more the strange look came over his face, and he said 
rather eagerly, “ For a time it seemed to open a door, 

but I-” Suddenly the man turned sharply, so 

sharply that the girl was startled. “ Where was that ? ” 
he demanded thickly. “ When did it happen ? What 



REVELATIONS 165 

was it that made my head cloud and the long illness? 
Who was I before that? Where was I then?” 

With a furious blush he shook his head as though 
to shake off a fatal spell; he turned to Shipman and 
Minga. “ I—I beg your pardon; I shouldn’t have 
spoken. It comes over me like that; I forgot for the 
moment.” 

Watts Shipman stood strangely quiet. The lawyer’s 
look was that of a man who himself gropes for a 
clue and yet is suspicious. “ But, yes,” he said quietly, 
not without a slight touch of patronage, “ if there is 
anything you want to straighten out, speak out, don’t 
be afraid of us.” 

But Colter groaned. His look first of horror was 
altered to that of great mental struggle. The hands 
clenching at his side, the fine face blunted and torn 
by some doubt and fear; it was all too much for the 
girl who had rescued him. Sard started toward him; 
she put out her hand as to protect. “ Hush! ” she 
said, “ you must not try to remember; ” then, sooth¬ 
ingly, “ try to keep your mind just where it is now. 
Here! With us ! ” 

The man turned slowly toward her; he straightened 
up obediently, looking from face to face, then all 
around the scene where they stood; the clear “ race ” 
murmuring about them, the little sandy shore, the 
tea baskets and shawls tumbled on the ground; he 
passed his hand over his face and, half-groaning, a 
baffled expression as of a half-formed word broke 
from his lips. “Did I frighten you?” he asked pite¬ 
ously. “ I am afraid I frightened you. I—I 


166 


UNDER THE LAW 


wa s-” He groaned, and it was a groan like hu¬ 

man tears. 

Sard, who was trembling now in every limb, denied 
it stoutly, but Minga looked resentful and suspicious. 
The older girl who had originally guessed what was 
the matter with Colter, that complete forgetfulness 
had swept his mind blank of vital things, felt her 
own sense of dismay. That the man was not playing 
at this thing, that he had altogether lost his sense of 
personal identity, she was sure, but back of that, what 
lay back of that? Then with a hot shame she re¬ 
membered the tenderness that had come into her 
voice as she said, " Hush,” to this man; as if she had 
spoken to a child. 

But now the voices down the river were coming 
closer. There was much far-off shouting and singing 
in unfinished snatches of songs; the sound of a ukulele 
and a mandolin played, the one with tripping assured 
fingers, the other very much out of tune with clumsy 
effort to produce harmonies. The staccato chatter 
and gabble of two girl voices sounded oddly in the 
dense woods of swamp maple; now and then shrill 
laughter or an artificial scream jarred on the ears of 
the up-stream party. Minga, still absorbed in her 
search for possible pearls, hardly noticed this, but 
Shipman, with a face as immovable as an Indian’s, 
gave it some inquiry. 

“ Who are in your brother’s party ? ” he asked at 
last. “ Our friend Dunce of the repartee and—er— 
who else ? ” 

“ Oh, Cynthia Bradon,” Minga returned, “ and 



REVELATIONS 


167 


Gertrude, the girl we call the * road hog/ you know. 
She’s about the most modem girl I know,” said 
Minga with an air of congratulation; “ nothing stops 
her—she’s sort of impulsive, you know, and yet crafty; 
it’s quite a queer combination.” 

Shipman thought it might be a very queer com¬ 
bination. “ There’s a whopper, that mussel down 
there,” he bared his hairy arm and reached down for 
it. “ Looks as if there might be a whole pearl neck¬ 
lace in that.” 

'But when they cut it open the pearl was too small to 
be of much account, so they scooped about in the 
dark water for others. As they worked, Minga poured 
out a good deal about Cynthia and Gertrude. The 
lively scarlet-capped girl had forgotten how all the 
way down South Mountain that night she had sworn 
to Dunstan that she hated Shipman and had called 
him a murderer and a man who would for sheer joy 
commit Terence O’Brien and any other fugitive to 
the electric chair for the glee of watching him done 
to death. Now, on her knees, she turned her spar¬ 
kling blue eyes on the lawyer’s dark face; they rested 
there like flowers magnetized by the deep stream of 
his being. 

“If you get a big pearl like Sard’s, I’ll love you— 
all my life,” she said softly. Minga was trying the 
little iridescent antennae with which a woman tests 
the toughness of a man’s surface, but something gen¬ 
uine stirred in her, and when the great lawyer turned 
to look more closely into her face she had the grace 
to wince a little. 


1G8 


UNDER THE LAW 


“That’s an engagement ring you wear, isn’t it?” 
Watts asked cheerfully. “ Some nice little cub spend¬ 
ing his lunch money on flowers and candy for you.” 

Minga tried to blush, but the time-honored suffusion 
somehow would not work; the girl’s own conscious¬ 
ness, her involuntary registry as of something 
“ wrong with the mechanism ” did not escape the law¬ 
yer ; he threw back his head and the forest rang with 
his glee. 

“ No, that’s something you’ve lost, you modern 
girls, you don’t know how to blush. It was a won¬ 
derful thing your mothers laid up just the way they 
used to store up old wine, and it worked. Ye Gods! 
how it worked! But you—a little bit too much soul- 
enamel, Mademoiselle, to say nothing of these other 
things you put on your lovely little faces.” 

Minga bent her head; if she couldn’t blush she 
could, at least, simulate shyness, and girls who hope 
to be moving-picture actresses know how to simulate 
most things; many of them are perfectly satisfied with 
simulation for reality. Shipman went on teasing about 
the engagement ring. “ Tawny Troop,” said he, “ was 
a very good name, an excellent name, something like 
a wandering singer, didn’t Minga think, or an acro¬ 
bat; and did the good Tawny make enough money to 
support a wife? ” 

“ His father is a big motion picture producer,” said 
Minga with dignity. She became calm and explana¬ 
tory, “ and he dances my line of dancing. I work up 
my line, you know, and so to keep him from the other 
girls I am engaged to him; but we don’t either of 


REVELATIONS 


169 


us want to make it public,” said Minga; “ we know 
too much of life,” with a world-wearied air. “ I 
think one should be sure of a person, don’t you ? But 
Tawny is a good dancer,” and, with an indescribable 
complacence, “ this is a rather nice ring.” 

“ I shall congratulate the son of the Producer,” said 
Watts mockingly. “ Does Prince Tawny go so far as 
to plan to produce anything himself? By Jove! 
Here’s your big pearl, a hummer! Well, now,” the 
lawyer was triumphant, “ I’ve made good, any¬ 
way.” 

But an older man attracted for a moment by a vivid 
little face always makes the mistake of speaking to 
depths that do not exist behind that face while he 
blunders on little vanities that do exist. Watts had 
seemed too irreverent about the engagement. He had 
not treated Minga as a valuable person to envy an¬ 
other man the possession of; this by all the books 
and plays that Minga knew anything about, was the 
proper way to treat an engaged girl—there must be 
envy from both men and women, heart-burning and 
backbiting jealousies, else why be engaged? As the 
lawyer practically cut the pearl out of its bed, washed 
it and with a mock ceremonious bow handed it to 
her with the disrespectful suggestion: “ My wedding 
present,” Minga tingled in a way that he had made 
her tingle before. With a slight, bored gesture, the 
girl took the tiny treasure, held it a moment in her 
hand, then with a sudden curl of the lip, and an un¬ 
lovely mocking in the eyes tossed it far from her, 
back into the forest. Minga stood there smiling at 


170 


UNDER THE LAW 


the man who had given it to her. She had a look of 
diablerie older than the history of woman. 

“ Why, you little-” for a moment the dark 

brows beetled, then Shipman laughed, while Minga 
stared insolently into his face. She glanced over her 
shoulder. 

“ Oh, I wish we could have supper,” she fretted. 
“ I’m so fed up with this place. Sard, have we got 
to stay here all night? It’s getting dark. Oh! I wish 
the Bunch would come along. I’m tired of old peo¬ 
ple ! ” 

There was no doubt but that the Bunch were com¬ 
ing; the catcalls, the yelps of laughter and frantic 
strumming of instruments came nearer and nearer. 
Watts, sitting idly on the bank watching Sard and 
Colter set out the supper, winced once or twice. 
There was something blatant and raw in the voices of 
the girls that even at that distance suggested squalid 
things. The great lawyer had heard maudlin women 
under many circumstances. Watts, like many another 
professional man, knew that there was nothing more 
awful in its debauchery and spiritual nakedness than 
a civilized woman under drugs or loose emotion. 

“ What are these girls like ? ” he inquired sharply of 
Sard. 

The girl for a moment did not answer; Minga 
giggled. 

“ Like Paprika and Chutney,” she burst into a half¬ 
laugh, looking meaningly at Sard. 

“Sounds a good deal like one of Cinny’s jags; 
now where would she get anything-” 




REVELATIONS 


171 


“ Hush/' The other girl’s worried look stopped 
Minga. But the rebuke in it seemed to nettle the 
restless little creature, who jumped to her feet stamp¬ 
ing her foot. “ Oh, I’m half dead with this old place,” 
said Minga. “ I'm cold, too. I’m going to explore the 
forest; want to come ? ” looking over her shoulder at 
Shipman. 

At his smiling negative, Minga pouted. “ All right, 
then I’ll go by myself.” She made as if to burst 
through the wall of swamp-maples, looking tantaliz- 
ingly back at the lawyer; but Colter, glancing up, in¬ 
terfered. 

“ There are bogs around here,” he warned, “ quick¬ 
sands; one can’t go very far without trouble.” 

Minga, shaking her head, started forward, half 
laughing back at the two men who with concern 
watched her. “ Catch me if you can, anybody,” she 
called to them. “ I’m the Lewis and Clark Expedi¬ 
tion, I’m Marco Polo, I’m going to explore, I tell 
you. Who follows ? ” 

One of the most interesting things of the decade is 
that the coolest, most blase girl of the time will under 
the right combination of circumstances play exactly 
the same game of sex that all her cave ancestors 
played before her. Minga, the emancipated, the in¬ 
dependent and wilful, the haughty and undisciplined, 
was now courting a very special thrill, the old cave- 
woman thrill of expectancy to be captured and mas¬ 
tered. Modern women of maturer age realize that in 
asserting their superiority in general biological ascent 
they are losing this thrill. It is extremely edifying to 


172 


UNDER THE LAW 


Study the devices by which they seek to experience 
while they theoretically disclaim it; a sort of eat-your- 
cake-and-have-it idea that must necessarily result in 
some very queer psychoses. 

The little scarlet figure, peering through the bushes, 
deliberately grinned her challenge at Shipman; the 
tall, composed man, looking on with appreciation, de¬ 
liberately grinned back, but the more mature grin was 
a little forced. Watts Shipman understood, he under¬ 
stood very perfectly, he therefore did not pursue; it 
was Colter who with a worried exclamation darted 
after the girl rapidly disappearing in the swamp 
brush. 

Sard, also standing up, suddenly noticed that it was 
growing toward twilight. 

She stood there looking so lovely, with her worried 
eyes, the fine toss of her head, the lips parted, that 
Shipman instinctively drew near to her. “ I wish we 
had gone with Dunstan,” said the girl half to herself. 
Sard looked over to the lawyer. “ You remember my 
brother?” she asked simply. ‘‘It was he who took 
Minga home that night,” blushing a little in this new 
comradeship, to remember her own stiffness and aloof¬ 
ness that night. 

“ You’re very fond of him? ” Watts asked. 

“ Yes,” Sard sighed. “ I wish I could steer him 
right, but,” the girl drew her brows together, “ none 
of us seem able to help each other much.” She looked 
at the lawyer smiling. “ Sometimes,” she confessed, 
“ I worry.” 

“ Of course you worry,” said Watts softly. The 


REVELATIONS 


173 


lawyer liked being near her. He felt her clear hon¬ 
esty pouring all over him. Soft, pellucid, like the re¬ 
freshment of clean water: “ Of course you worry, but 
you will get tired if we keep on standing here. Sit 
down; let me take care of you.” 

The girl smiled; she very gladly let him take care of 
her. Sard, every inch of her capable and alert, had 
yet the power of those really powerful among women, 
' that of letting a man show toward her his own best, 
the thing bred in him by his muscular superiority, the 
mother-taught sacred thing of his chivalry. 

Watts, marveling at the grace of the girl, at her 
lovely calmness and steadiness, spread out the shawls 
on the bank. He piled the cushions back of her; he 
collected twigs and lighted a little fire. “ It will be a 
beacon for them to find their way back,” he said. “ I 
rather fancy that little witch, Minga, will put your 
man through his paces; but he seems resourceful.” 

“ They will be back soon,” agreed Sard dubiously. 

The lawyer looked at her at last. “ I don't care if 
they don't come back too soon,” he said in a curious 
voice. Shipman felt suddenly young, and it was twi¬ 
light and there were bird notes in the woods. 

“ Oh, but we must have supper and get back before 
Aunt Reely begins to worry.” 

“ But,” he said, “ this is the time to talk to you, 
the time I've been waiting for.” Then as he saw her 
little questioning glance, “ It's been on my mind to talk 
to you about Terence O'Brien. The trial comes off 
next week. I have got to tell you, Miss Bogart, that 
his chances are very slim. But let's not talk about 


174 


UNDER THE LAW 


that. What I really want is,” said Shipman slowly, 
his eyes fixed steadily on hers, “ what I really want is 
to have you tell me all about this mystery man of 
yours. Tell me,” he begged, “ all about Colter! ” 


CHAPTER XVI 


SOPHISTICATION 

Telling Shipman “ all about Colter ” was, Sard 
found, not so easy. To eyes fixed upon hers with in¬ 
scrutable powers of judgment, it was difficult to find 
words for the story. Yet, as the girl, her forehead 
slightly knotted, described the half-bent figure of the 
vagabond, surrounded by a curious little ring of vil¬ 
lage loafers, half prodded, half jeered into mumbled 
answers to questions as to what he was doing there, 
Shipman responded easily to the passion for decency 
and justice that had swept over her who had driven 
her car close up to the group. The picture of Sard 
dominating the half respectful, half resentful loafers, 
getting them to lift the dazed man into the car, was 
vivid. Shipman could see the calm young ascend¬ 
ency, the smiling way of giving directions, ignoring 
comments. The lawyer could visualize the whole 
thing, country smirks and all, as she related how 
she and Lowden had driven Colter to the little 
boarding-house, arranged for a room and the attend¬ 
ance of a physician and finally left her own visiting 
card and address and the sentence scribbled, “ Come to 
this address when you are able to work.” 

There was something so divine in this unconscious 
recital of pure humanity that the man, sitting there, 
had no droll look of question, nor raised eyebrow of 

i75 


176 UNDER THE LAW 

inexpediency. The fresh eyes of the girl sought his 
for comment. 

“ I don’t approve,” he said slowly, “ but I admire.” 

“ But why don’t you approve ? ” 

Shipman looked into the young eyes, wondering at 
their brown brook-like centers, slightly tremulous with 
tiny shifting lights of gold. As the girl laughed, they 
deepened into a curious maternal gleam, a hint of 
motherliness. Fascinated by the clear purity of her, 
realizing how little she could grasp of the hun¬ 
dred cheap misinterpretations of her acts, he kept 
silent. 

“ Wouldn't you have ‘ approved ’ if you had been in 
Colter's place ? ” 

The lawyer straightened. After all, he was years 
older than she, even winged victories could come to 
grief; there were draggled wings and things that could 
not be victories. He saw the saucy inference and be¬ 
came somber, so somber that he had no answer to 
match his mood. Sard chose to be glibly interroga¬ 
tive. 

“ You must have seen that he is not a common 
man ? ” determinedly. 

“ You couldn’t have known that when you picked 
him up,” was the slightly testy reply. “ People can't 
do these things; the world is slimy, putrid, about all 
such things. The only thing that keeps the Augean 
stables livable is people like you that don't know the 
slimy things exist. I'm not at all sure,” said the law¬ 
yer, with a big brotherly air, “ that you had any right 
to carry the thing so far without your father's knowl- 


SOPHISTICATION 


177 


edge. Suppose this man had been a stool-pigeon, one 
of the bands that tour the country with plans for 
house-breaking.” As Shipman said the words he was 
tearing stray leaves in his hands, watching the droop¬ 
ing face, hating himself for casting a shadow on it. 

“ You have seen that he is a gentleman,” returned 
Sard steadily. If she had been an older woman she 
would have played lightly with the thing, half caress¬ 
ing the man in his chivalrous disapproval of her. But 
the lovely thing about Sard was that she took no such 
ways. While youth is youth it plays the game squarely, 
directly, standing outside of its own little fortress of 
personality, demanding, “ Who goes there—friend or 
foe ? ” and unhesitatingly letting down the portcullis 
for those who show the right colors even though they 
keep their visors down. 

“ I don’t like to butt in,” said Shipman, " but—but 
I’d rather have you think a little more, yet. I don’t 
know; if you did think you wouldn’t be you and you 

are-” The man muttered the end of the sentence; 

he suddenly recollected himself, rose restlessly and 
walked over toward the line of swamp maples walling 
the inner woods back of the stream. He peered a lit¬ 
tle anxiously into the rapidly glooming vistas. “ I 
think, Miss Girl, that you had better go a little slow,” 
was all he said. 

Shipman, himself, had been making a surreptitious 
study of Colter, and had to admit that the man, though 
apparently aged through some kind of exposure and 
deathless sorrow, had every evidence of good breeding 
and clean life. There had been a curious muscular 



178 UNDER THE LAW 

thinness to the long body that had spelled fundamental 
good health, though his cheeks were sunken and his 
hands nervous. Shipman had seen from the very be¬ 
ginning that Judge Bogart’s man of all work at one 
time had physical training: riding, perhaps, cross¬ 
country walking; very much of a man, yet undoubt¬ 
edly some ne’er do well who for reasons best known 
to himself had been willing to put himself under a 
girl’s protection and affect so silly a disease as amne¬ 
sia. Shipman balked at the amnesia theory. The 
lawyer half grimaced at the possibilities of Sard’s 
awakening and disappointment. He cast about 
for some way in which he could warn the impulsive 
girl at his side yet help her in what she believed. 

“ People talk about training girls for the home,” 
said Sard. She was standing close by him now. 
“Why don’t they see that the World is our home? 
All our own separate little homes are just so many 
leaves and petals on the great World-Flower. It 
isn’t enough to know how to run a little house with 
two floors and a bathroom and a kitchen,” said the 
girl. “ We must train our minds and our muscles to 
be ready to help anywhere; in foreign countries—to 
make homes in Hell, if need be.” 

It was said not recklessly or rantingly, but with a 
New Conviction, the conviction of clean, honest youth 
awake to the larger demand of the future and anxious 
not to be surprised or appalled, but to meet those de¬ 
mands. Shipman, something young and aching in his 
own breast, something that had not been touched for 
years, looked down upon the tawny head so close to 


SOPHISTICATION 179 

his shoulder; he caught his breath, “ Winged Vic¬ 
tory,” he murmured. 

“ What ? ” asked practical Sard. 

For answer the lawyer growled, “ Nothing.” He 
wandered restlessly about pulling back the low screen¬ 
ing maple branches, peering into the depths of the 
woods where low sunset bird notes sounded over the 
wild geraniums and the ferns sent out strange bracken 
scents. 

“ Miss Bogart, do you know the character of the 
swamps through this section ? Are there quick¬ 
sands ? ” ' 

The girl stared “I don’t know,” then suddenly 
startled, “Why?” 

“Just because,”—the man was listening intently— 
“ H’m! Yes, that’s your man Colter’s voice. I 
thought I heard it once before. Do you suppose 
he needs us ? ” He looked smilingly at her, anxious 
not too greatly to disturb her. u Would Miss Minga 
take chances with a bog or whatever? She’d do al¬ 
most any fool thing, wouldn’t she ? ” 

“ Chances—Minga! ” Sard laughed while she 
frowned. “That’s all Minga ever takes—chances; 
her life is like a little patchwork quilt, full of queer 
little bright pieces that don’t match.” Now the girl 
herself listened, staring into her companion’s face, 
noting its strength and grimness. “ I—I like him, 
sort of,” admitted Sard to herself. Aloud she said, 
“Why, that’s funny; just now I thought I heard 
someone too, but it was down there,” indicating the 
direction of the canoes that could be heard farther 


180 


UNDER THE LAW 


down the creek. The sound of the mandolins and 
ukuleles had stopped, but wrangling voices sounded 

from time to time and once more came the raucous 

\ 

screams that Shipman had noted earlier in the after¬ 
noon. 

“ That’s Cinny,” said Sard, frowning in good ear¬ 
nest. “ Ugh! ” said the girl irritatedly, “ I wish she 

wouldn’t be so queer. I wish-” 

“ What do you wish ? ” asked Shipman quietly. He 
had the quality of the man whom she had seen that 
first night at the organ builder’s house, a quality of 
control and strength that a woman might lean on. 
Half unconsciously Sard did lean on it; a worried look 
had come over her face. “ I feel responsible for 
Minga,” she admitted, “ for all of them; they’re so 
queer, so almost horrid sometimes. I get fussed won¬ 
dering how they’ll turn out—they—they seem to have 
no Law.” 

“ They have the Law-of-the-Pack, apparently,” said 
Shipman, laughing. He, too, remembered that night 
at the organ builder’s house. He recalled the defiant 
young faces fixed upon him as he had disciplined one 
of their number. Shipman recalled the incident with 
some satisfaction. He thought particularly of Minga. 
“ Little fiend, I’d like to—but that was just it—what 
did one do to little fiends like Minga? ” 

His own frown was puzzled as he realized that it 
was getting late and that Minga and Colter were miss¬ 
ing, yet what to do? Wait for the young lady to con¬ 
clude her vagaries, or go forth after her and so pander 
to the vain little thing who had hidden herself in order 



SOPHISTICATION 


181 


to force him to search for her. Shipman half laughed 
at the unaccountable thoughts that had stolen into his 
mind; all Minga needed was to be well kissed, kissed 
very hard indeed. The lawyer, standing straight, 
drew a short breath. “ H’m, perhaps it was time to 
get back to the mountain top, to Friar Tuck, to a 
plaster cast and a few old books and a pipe and some 
memories. By Jove, it was time to get back! ” 

Suddenly Sard reached out and grasped the law¬ 
yer’s arm. “ Listen,” she said eagerly. “ There! ” 

The touch, vigorous and arresting, sobered while it 
thrilled him; he flushed like a guilty boy. The lawyer, 
lost in cases and evidence and books, had not had 
companionship with a woman like this for years; it 
was like being with a young wind-blown tree or a sun- 
spangled fountain. It was so fresh and spontaneous 
and unconscious that it made him feel clumsy, lost, 
like some uncouth being that must find a new soul or 
else miss out on this companionship. The touch 
brought back things, college day things that were vital, 
almost Pagan in their care-free elan, so that his eyes 
deepened, almost snapped as he, in his turn, grasped 
the girl’s hand. “ There! ” He mocked her. His 
hand closed on her fingers. 

But Sard seemed not to notice; she was listening 
intently; suddenly her eyes widened and she turned 
toward him. “ That was Colter,” she said decisively. 
“ Hark! Yes—he needs help—he is calling; we must 

Pausing, her face flushed and earnestly fixed upon 
him, the famous lawyer suddenly realized untram- 


182 


UNDER THE LAW 


meled girlhood in all its essence of fineness and free¬ 
dom ; what he did not notice was that at the sound of 
the far-off voice of the man in the forest, her whole 
being had expanded like a light and that she stood for 
a moment like a young mother whose child cries 

“ Coming! " she called. 

Turning, they plunged through the green walls of 
the swamp. Sard put her brown hands to her mouth. 

“ Coming! " she called. 

Meanwhile two canoes rounded the little green 
promontory that walled in the “ race '' and floated in 
toward the small beach where Sard's party were en¬ 
camped. One of these, propelled by Dunstan Bogart, 
moved slowly, halted now and then by the movements 
of a girl leaning in the stern. This girl's idea of hu¬ 
mor seemed to be to lean forward and grasp the pad¬ 
dle as it went in the water. From side to side the two 
leaned, Dunstan trying to evade the paddle-grasper 
amid the snorts and chuckles of them both. Suddenly 
the paddle was arrested in mid-air. 

“ Pshaw! somebody has been here ahead of us! 
Look at those traps on the bank there." 

Dunstan, his face unlike its usual merry self, a 
somewhat sodden look to his faun eyes, looked about 
for the advance pearl hunters. Jumping out, he kicked 
the empty mussel shells about, he reached forward and 
inspected the picnic trappings and thermos bottles. 
“ Sandwiches!" he called out to the others. “ They 
haven’t had supper, whoever they are; look, there's 
a pile of driftwood for their fire," then with a whistle, 
" Holy Cat—I say, Gert, here's my sister's thermos 


SOPHISTICATION 


183 


bottle; look at the monogram, S. B. And that’s 
Minga’s plaid steamer rug. I know, because I got her 
a pillow to match. Say, for heaven’s sake! Let’s 
get out of here; we don’t want to piggy-mix in their 
party. Pshaw! they’ve beat us to it, pearls and all! ” 

Gertrude, lying back in the canoe, smoking, raised 
her head. There was a gold serpent bracelet around 
one of her brown arms, and around the waist of her 
thin green jersey another huge gold serpent twined. 
She made a strange exotic picture in the leafy dimness 
of the late afternoon. Her dark hair, brilliant cheeks 
and lips suggested Eastern things; one instinctively put 
her against some background of pyramids and 
sphinxes. When she spoke, however, the illusion van¬ 
ished ; Gertrude employed the “ chewing gum ” ac¬ 
cent in all its undiscipline of inflections and jawful 
mouthings. She had only to open her mouth and one 
knew that however subtle and old the soul that lay 
within her, the brain that controlled that soul had only 
one idea, to get things, and to get them quickly. 

“ Why get out ? ” she asked indolently. “ I thought 
we were booked till midnight.” Gertrude had pre¬ 
pared her golden snakes for a forest moonlight. 

“ Well, if you think it’s fair to Cinny.” At this the 
girl in the second boat sat up staring about her. Her 
fair hair was tousled, her eyes were dull, and her 
mouth hung loosely. 

“ What’s the matter with Cinny ? ” she demanded. 
“ I’m all right—I’m a li’F slipp—sleepy, that’s all 
Dunce, who’s got the chawclets ? I want some more.” 
With a burst of silly laughter the girl lay down again, 


184 


UNDER THE LAW 


her eyelids drooping heavily, the young, full lips 
pushed out in a coarse way, hateful to see. 

The other youth brought his boat with this burden 
alongside the bank where the first campers had piled 
their belongings. “ Wouldn’t it be more fun to hang 
around? ” this youth asked. “ The fair lady can sleep 
there and we can just say she’s tired out, sunburn and 
all—y’ know. Whassay we sort of stay and watch the 
fun?” this fellow asked. The speaker, resplendent 
in a white college sweater, with its ostentatious chest 
letter, had a curious old man’s look of importance and 
prestige. On his hands were two extremely ornate 
rings of cabalistic designs drawn by himself. His tie 
was prodded with a gold nugget, his wrist-watch was 
a sort of disease of jewels, he had in every motion he 
made the self-conscious assurance of the fop, the sort 
of man who is trained in boyhood by silly women to 
“ appear well ” in hotels. “ I don’t care when I meet 
my fiancee,” he winked at Gertrude. 

Tawny Troop, Minga’s betrothed, well up in the es¬ 
sential attitudes of good sportsmanship, yet now by 
his very way of handling his paddle, showed the Miss 
Nancy, the jeunesse doree spirit that one felt would 
take him a certain successful distance and then with 
some untimely revelation utterly betray him. 

“ I think we should remain here.” Tawny spoke as 
one accustomed to being obeyed; his voice was soft 
and his inflection pampered, but his tones had all the 
assurance that is given by a large bank account. 

Dunce looked at the man irritably. “All right,” he 
growled, “ remain then.” Dunstan was thinking of the 


SOPHISTICATION 


185 


general mess of things should Minga return. In¬ 
stinctively downright himself, the lad could not bear 
the suggestion of intrigue that he knew Gertrude 
gloried in. There was something so worried and re¬ 
sentful in the deep brown eyes that the girl still in the 
boat beckoned to him. Gertrude reached up a long, 
well-shaped arm, sleeve rolled to the elbow. She 
plucked at Dunstan, trying to pull him down to her. 
“ Poor little boy, come and be petted,” she laughed. 
It was the laugh of an old soul in a young body. All 
the manner and experience of the woman of the low 
lights and intimate perfumes was in Gertrude’s ges¬ 
ture. For answer the boy, standing on shore, kicked 
the bow of the boat away from him; he sent it slant¬ 
ing into the center of the “ race,” where it wobbled 
about; the girl, eyebrows raised, took up the paddle 
and lazily shoved it back. 

“You beast! Why did you do that?” Gertrude’s 
mouth was large and apt to be a little over-delicious in 
some of her planned scenes; but now it was hard bit¬ 
ted, twitching, like the mouth of a wicked horse; her 
eyes, long and liquid, were artificially enhanced with 
violet shadows and her face set between great rolls of 
lacquered hair, had moments of extreme craft seen 
under a curious mask of self-indulgent ease and glut¬ 
tony. She reached over and, taking a chocolate, bit 
into it with white teeth that seemed to have a meaning 
of their own, her mocking eyes fixed on the sulky boy 
on the bank. 

“ Have some delirium tremens ? ” Gertrude waved 
the box of chocolates. It was a gift from Tawny and 


186 


UNDER , THE LAW 

contained three pounds of candy filled with varying 
liquors, French and Greek condensations that were 
rather intense for the American head. 

Dunstan glowered scornfully down on the girl. 
“Ah! Why don’t you stop eating that rat poison?” 
he demanded fretfully. He turned to Tawny Troop, 
now tickling Cinny’s sleepy face with a grass blade. 
“ You thing in the bath-towel sweater, you thought 
it was funny to bring doped candy, I suppose. They 
like that at the Chinamen’s balls and the other festivi¬ 
ties you frequent, hey? Aw, old stuff, old stuff! ” 
The tones were purposely insulting, but at first the 
Troop merely chuckled for answer. Then he leaned 
forward and kissed Cinny lightly. At this, something 
latent in Dunstan seemed to take fire—he turned and 
muttered things uncomplimentary. “Aw,” he snarled, 
“ aw, cut it out.” 

“ Now, Dunce, now, Tiger! ” this from Gertrude. 
But the boy turned to her with an ugly look in his 
eyes. “ Well, Gertrude Farum,” said Dunstan slowly 
and impressively, “ now that we're here where decent 
girls are, don’t you think you’d better take a day off, 
clean up, bum up the trash—y’ know ? ” 

Disgust was quivering all over the boy’s face, but 
his own accent was also thick, his eyes heavy; he had 
had his share of the doped candy and something else 
from the absurd gold flask that Tawny sported. Dun¬ 
stan, to his shame, had also had his share of such di¬ 
version as this frivolous society afforded. Suddenly at 
sight of the things belonging to his sister and the girl 
staying with her, all the clean gentleman in him rose 


SOPHISTICATION 


187 


up and accused him, and he suddenly found himself 
entangled with things which he did not know how; to 
unravel. 

But Troop, the exquisite, now spoke up. He ap¬ 
pealed to the girls. 

“By heck! the darned lobster. Say, I think he 
ought to apologize. Gert—Cin—don't yew? Yep, by 
heck, I do. Say, man, you're, by heck, you're rotten 
insulting. I'll tell the world you ought to be crowned. 
You’re rotten insulting, I'll tell the little old world!" 

Dunstan heard the squeaking voice in silence. The 
afternoon had been long and hot. Things had risen 
in him that made his veins seem full of fire. He 
looked this way and that, like a trapped creature that 
smells clean water and wants to get to it. His ears 
were singing, his eyes burning, and he dreaded both 
the return of the two decent girls whom he loved and 
a possible evening spent with the two girls before him. 
He tried to speak but he knew that his own accent 
was thick and uncertain, and he could have burst into 
tears. There was Cinny lying abandoned, disheveled, 
her small beautiful form too well revealed by the large 
meshed transparent jersey she wore, her white face 
soggy and debauched, her corn-silk hair dampened and 
matted. A sense of degradation came to Dunstan. 
The fact that the other two could not and would not 
feel this obsessed him. Cinny was such a little fool. 
He stood on the bank and raged childishly. 

“ We couldn't be commoner if we were wharf rats! 
I've seen Chinatown people behaving better than— 
than we have. We're a lot of vile pigs." It was 


188 


UNDER THE LAW 


characteristic of Dunstan that he included himself in 
the indictment. He turned toward the snake-wreathed 
Gertrude. 

“ You knew that stuff was drugged, and you fed it 
to us all,” the boy, staring disgustedly on the three, 
half sobbed in his frenzy. He went to the bank’s 
edge nervously, gesticulating. “ It was a rotten trick, 
and I—well, I know that we’ve behaved like swine, 
and I’ll say so. Yes, I don’t care, I’ll bawl us out. 

I’ll bawl myself out—I’ll-” Poor Dunstan flung 

out his arms in a passionate gesture. 

“Aw!” they jeered. “Aw, say!” But the be- 
ringed Tawny also rose. He stood wobbling his ca¬ 
noe, stabbing at the water aimlessly, and the oratorical 
manner he maintained would have been funny, had 
not his very words revealed his befuddled condition. 

“ Well, I can tell you,” he swore solemnly, “ that 
you insult these ladies. Yes, sir! That’s it, you in¬ 
sult ’em. If I had a gun I’d crown you—yes. That’s 
it, you insult these ladies.” Tawny’s tongue seemed 
to cleave to the roof of his mouth; he wet his lips. 
With a surly squint of the eyes, he faced the youth on 
the bank. 

“ These ladies ” did not seem particularly resentful 
on their own account. But the squalidness of it all, 
the silly and disgusting company in which he found 
himself, burned up into Dunstan’s head. The boy al¬ 
most hopped as he strode toward Tawny. 

“ Why, you hound! ” he shrieked. “ Who are you 
to say that, you moving-picture Polly. I insult ’em, 
do I? What did you do, you rotter? You brought 



SOPHISTICATION 


189 


that infernal gold tank of yours and this sick stuff; 
you knew those girls couldn’t—couldn’t ” Sud¬ 
denly Dunstan, with long arm, reached forward to the 
seat by Gertrude. Snatching the candy box he tossed 
it into the creek, all its remaining chocolate-covered 
contents avalanching forth. He turned on the aghast 
Troop. “Aw,” he breathed, “ aw, you worsted mon¬ 
key, you’ll not bring candy like that again to nice girls. 
When you come here again leave your cute candy with 
the Chinks where it belongs.” 

But Tawny was now aroused. This was an attack 
on a sensitive point. Getting all his jewelry straight, 
pulling down his monogrammed white sweater, he 
rose, as one towering on the rostrum and stood feet 
planted wide apart in the wobbling craft. He met 
Dunstan’s scorn with answering derision. “ Yah—nice 
girls ? ” he queried in his turn. “ Nice, what ? Oh, 
come on ! Nice girls, I’ll say! ” mimicked the sarcas¬ 
tic Tawny. He regarded his suave finger-nails and 
over them cast one eye on the recumbent Cinny, the 
other on the snake-wreathed Gertrude. He sneered 
back at his antagonist. “ Nice girls; root for ’em by 
your lonesome. Nobody else’ll help you. Nice girls, 
nothing! ” 

This was too much for Dunstan. The trip for him 
had been miserable anyway. He had found the party 
which he had entered with a slight measure of distrust 
to be entirely dominated by the Exquisite, and the sub¬ 
sequent unwholesome revelations of Cinny the lacka¬ 
daisical, and Gertrude the importunate, had beguiled 
him into that dubious activity known as “ being a good 



190 


UNDER THE LAW 


sport.” Dunstan, out of a very clean straightforward 
heritage, felt somehow vulgarized, degraded. Per¬ 
spiring, he waited like a crouching panther for the 
other man to meet him on shore. 

“ Cinny! ” shrieked Gertrude, with her hard laugh. 
“ Wake up, Honey, here’s something worth while! 
Dunstan, the great chewing-gum champion, is going to 
meet Tawny Troop, the cutest little evader in the 
Hackensack Backwaters. Who holds the odds?” 
Cinny put up an indifferent hand to her fair hair, one 
of the cushions fell overboard, also a ukulele. Ger¬ 
trude, with an exclamation, paddled over and rescued 
these; she leaned over to Cinny, saying sharply: 

“ What’s the matter with you ? Why can’t you sit 
up and behave? Don’t you realize that Sard and 
Minga are around here somewhere ? ” Gertrude 
leaned close over to the other girl, whispering very 
distinctly. “ Cinny, we’ll have to see that we are not 
any sportier than they are. Of course, no one knows 
what they’ve been doing. Dunce is really mad, and if 
he gets talking—you know that Minga is engaged to 
Tawny.” But she spoke to deaf ears. 

“ Leave me alone,” murmured Cinny. 

Dunstan, seeing the whole squalid meaning of his 
party, burst into flames. He strode to the other boy 
now getting out and meeting him on the shore. With 
a grip like that of a young gorilla, Dunstan seized the 
Exquisite Troop by his silken shirt collar. “ Come 
out, you sissy,” he snarled, “ come out here, you piece 
of pallid pie-crust. You feed girls drugged candy, do 
you? Well, you’ll get fed, fed up nicely.” 


SOPHISTICATION 


191 


But Tawny Troop was not the son of a moving- 
picture producer for nothing. After all there was a 
grand stand with two ladies in it. The Troop gesture 
meant something; with a sound as much like an an¬ 
swering snarl as he could make it, Tawny drew up in 
magnificent hauteur. This attitude greatly irritated 
the other. “Ah! Come on, you marionette,” he mut¬ 
tered. Dunstan cast about for something that should 
rouse the other. “ You paid escort, you Messenger 
Boy.” It was cub rage, but it was adolescent cub, and 
it was somehow significant. 

The girl Cinny rose slowly on her elbow staring at 
them with heavy eyes. Gertrude clapped her hand 
over her mouth to keep back a howl. The two boys 
clinched, and it was an ugly clinch. 

Dunstan's hand went straight to the throat of the 
other. Here they met and the lad seemed to forget all 
fair rules of fighting. A look of crazy joy came into 
the hot brown eyes. Oh, this was a man's size job! a 
good thing to do. Then Dunce saw the horrible look 
of Tawny's face changing under his hands; yes, but 
was this the way? Suddenly by some strange under¬ 
ground channel of thought awakened by emotion, 
Dunstan remembered the morning in the dining-room 
his own jeering aside under his father's sternness and 
“ be hanged by the neck till you are dead ”—that was 
what his father had said when—men—when men were 
sentenced for murder. Terence O'Brien, poor Terry, 
young, young! Dunstan looked again at the face un¬ 
der his hands; it was colored dark; this was the right 
way!—to throttle like this! 


192 


UNDER THE LAW 


Then the boy looked about at the trees, at the white 
faces of the girls, voiceless, and his hands, flaccid, 
suddenly fell away. “ We’ll stop,” he said thickly, 
“ we’ll stop. I don’t want to fight. Oh 11 don’t want 
to, don’t want to fight! ” 

Tawny, a look of relief hiding some other look, 
staggered against a tree, where he gasped wretchedly. 
“ You, you coward!” he shrieked, choking. Some¬ 
thing like a frightened sob gulped out of him; then 
there was a sound of footsteps in the thicket behind 
them. Four forms emerged. Sard first, alert and 
making straight for the ready built fire, which she 
quickly and deftly lighted; Shipman next, and after 
them Colter with a small form held in his arms, cov¬ 
ered with mud and soaked in black ooze, Minga with 
face and hair a mass of slime. 

There was very little explanation. The fire blazed 
up and the little figure wrapped in rugs given some¬ 
thing hot to drink. The others stood around and 
watched her. Gertrude, with a hard stare, turned in 
the firelight to Tawny. The girl was one cold glitter 
of gold snakes and swamp dark eyes. “ Your fian¬ 
cee ? ” she questioned, smiling. She was ironical. 
While the other party waited for Minga’s resuscita¬ 
tion, the quartette-started to get under way. But on 
the down-creek trip it was Tawny who paddled 
Gertrude’s boat, and they soon outstripped Dunstan, 
who came more slowly with Cinny asleep at his 
feet. 

The moon spotted the black of the forest and spread 
silver on the waterways. All around the slow-moving 


i 


SOPHISTICATION 


193 


canoes were the waiting ones, the little wood creatures 
who come out innocently for their pure trysts and un¬ 
witting obediences to the great laws they honestly 
serve. These stayed cleanly apart from the canoes 
with their human freight, the strange mystical human 
beings who are torn between their two great alle¬ 
giances, the animal and the spiritual. But only Dun- 
stan saw these things, and paddled solemnly and felt 
like crying and wondered what serene wisdom the 
summer night withheld. 




CHAPTER XVII 


A GOOD NAME 

The Judge had come in to dinner in a bad temper. 
For one thing he had been badly beaten at golf by a 
man who could not speak good English. This thing 
seemed to the Judge insufferable, a thing that should 
not be allowed. Fancy being beaten by the long drives 
and careful calculation of a hooked-nose oaf who 
shambled in his walk and said “ acrost ” and “ bee- 
hind ” and “ I was to New York.” 

The Judge was beginning to feel his age in many 
ways. His complete absorption in his calling made 
him sometimes aghast at how differently life went 
from what he stipulated. A nightmarish sense of 
suddenly awaking in an unfamiliar milieu, in sur¬ 
roundings peopled with beings he did not understand, 
who did nothing he had willed, oppressed him. 

The very weather was more progressive than the 
Judge wanted it to be. The late June, lush and rich 
with vegetation, seemed to impinge on his conception 
of a world neatly outlined in flower borders and gar¬ 
den paths. The weeds around his rose gardens had 
accumulated! Colter had not yet removed them. 
The man was clearly a shirker, endeavoring to impress 
people with his superiority to work. Where was he 
at this moment? The Judge had not been able to lo¬ 
cate him on the place. Then the whole attitude of the 

194 


A GOOD NAME 


195 


immediate world toward the Terence O’Brien affair 
affected the Judge. “ In the good old days,” thought 
that gentleman, “ men committed crime and we hung 
’em and that was the end of it Nowadays a man 
does wrong, and what happens ? First, the women all 
over the country begin howling; then the newspapers 
run amuck because some smart politician sees capital 
in it; then the fool letter writers, E Pluribus Unum, 
Veritas, and Uncle Felix, begin gassing; then some 
lawyer sees a chance for notoriety and takes the de¬ 
fense, first thing you know ”—the Judge was almost 
awed at it,—“ the Bench itself, the Bench itself, is 
put into the wrong! ” 

Miss Aurelia, amid accustomed twitters about hot 
water, the instability of cooking gas, the fact that the 
cream wasn’t good and her other daily anguishes, yet 
found time for soft demurring. 

“ But Mr. Shipman, brother, surely he couldn’t 
need notoriety. Why he—they—I remember the Led- 
yard affair. Mr. Shipman got George Ledyard com¬ 
pletely exonerated, at least it was said so, though he 
did commit suicide afterward. The thing ran through 
the country like wild-fire. Mr. Shipman must be very 
well known. Not that I quite understand, but there 
was a famous scientist, brother to Mr. Ledyard, I be¬ 
lieve, whom they scoured the country for-” 

The Judge moved prohibitively and Miss Aurelia 
ran down. “ Women’s clack,” came the judicial sen¬ 
tence on her remarks. “ Women’s clack, Shipman’s 
game is to take some mucker and put him on top; it 
gets him well known and keeps the people for him. 



196 


UNDER THE LAW 


He’ll run for something some day. Don’t like the 
man, never did.” The Judge, having passed sentence 
on Shipman, looked around in a manner of swelled 
grandeur. Then his hard-boiled eyes becoming sud¬ 
denly conscious of the two empty seats at the table, he 
asked abruptly, “ Where are the girls ? Hey ? What ? 
What did you say ? Where are they ? ” 

Miss Aurelia, when cornered this sudden way by 
the bushy brows of concentrated inquiry, invariably 
straightened things on the table while her remarks be¬ 
came more tangled and confused. The setting to 
rights movement invariably gave her away. When she 
accurately replaced a salt-cellar the Judge, perfectly 
aware what uneasiness this connoted, followed her up 
as a dog would a scared rabbit. He stopped chewing 
to corner her. 

“ Hey? What! Why don’t you want to tell? Hey? 
Where are the girls ? Can you answer a straight ques¬ 
tion? Yes or no? ” The Judge was sarcastic. 

Miss Aurelia, taking up a tumbler, looked at it re¬ 
proachfully, then put it down with an air of gentle 
resignation. “ Why, brother, of course I can. Do I 
ever do anything else? ” The smoky, soft eyes had an 
air of surprise and inquiry. “ When you think of all 
the questions that are asked me in the house and the 
pains that I am put to in order to answer them fully 
and plainly—that is ”—Miss Aurelia caught her 
brother’s eye—“ if I understand, or they, you—I—er 
—why do you ask ? ” 

The magistrate, now being sure of deceit and eva¬ 
sion in the stammering lady opposite, played what was 


A GOOD NAME 


197 


usually a very strong card with her. In fact, the 
Judge almost loved Miss Aurelia because she was the 
only person of his household who regarded this as a 
strong card. With an air of majesty, a thing that in 
his young days he had practised until he believed in it, 
a thing that would have made him a marvelous model 
for a moving-picture photographer, he brought down 
his fist until the lunch table rattled. Miss Aurelia, 
well trained in her part, jumped. It was the thing to 
do. Dora, bringing in the custards, looked nervous, 
quite proper of Dora. The hard-boiled eyes seeing all 
this took on a curious top film of complacency. The 
Judge leaned forward. 

“ Now, if you can speak the truth,” the Judge shook 
impressively that thick forefinger which had so long 
been unwittingly the little coffin nail of dead oratory, 
“ if you are capable of speaking the truth, where are 
the girls ? Did they ask your permission to go ? Did 
they take the depot car without my permission? Did 
they ask that sneak Colter to go with them, also with¬ 
out my permission ? ” 

The curious something that sleeps in the frailest and 
feeblest woman now rose in Miss Aurelia. She seized 
a pepper-pot and violently shook it. “ Stopped up 
again,” said she with a sepulchral voice. The lady 
faced her magistrate brother. “ I’m sure you have no 
right to address me as if I were a shoplifter, for I pre¬ 
sume that is the way you do address shoplifters, 
though it is true that I might be, that is, that you, 
anyone, might be a shoplifter.” Suddenly the poor 
lady paused, for the hard-boiled gooseberry eyes. 


198 


UNDER THE LAW 


steadily fixed upon her, at last had their wonted ef¬ 
fect. Miss Aurelia felt guilty, and that was what the 
Judge wanted. It was his great pride that he could 
make anyone feel guilty; he exulted. 

“ They’ve gone off somewhere,” burst out Miss 
Aurelia defiantly. “ Why didn’t you ask me before ? 
I'm sure you can’t see anything wrong in that. Dun- 
stan had gone with—with some other girls. I presume 
Sard and Minga have joined them. Dora and Maggie 
say that Colter drove them in the depot car.” 

The lady made as if to rise and leave the table. 
Her knees trembled, her stiffly starched white skirts 
rustled, she was the old-time picture of femininity 
swimming on the seas of its own emotions and ex¬ 
pecting to be rescued by the very man who had stirred 
up the storm. But Miss Aurelia, with her flutter of 
defiance and tears, had to pass the inexorable judicial 
eyes. 

“ You are sure the man Colter accompanied them? ” 
asked the Judge in the low tones he reserved for 
hardened offenders. 

But now that screeching, protesting thing that is in¬ 
trenched in the soul and body of every woman burst 
forth. Miss Aurelia was no longer early Victorian. 
She was late—Margot-Tennant, the pent-up protester, 
the savage that sleeps under the threshold. She rose 
and shrieked defiance. 

“ Sure ? ” demanded Miss Aurelia, ruffling, “ sure ? 
That’s what you wanted to know all along! Well 
then, why didn’t you forbid it, if you were afraid? 
You know how Sard does things. How could I help 


A GOOD NAME 


199 


it ? Have you ever told Sard not to be seen with this 
man? I have worried about it all day. Not that I 
fear for Sard,” poor Miss Aurelia saw too late the 
curious gleam in the Judge’s eyes, “ only she doesn’t 
realize that people will talk. The men in the Morris 

bank—and all—why, only yesterday-” but the 

reminiscence trailed off like a whiff of smoke in the 
blue haze of Miss Aurelia’s mind. “ Why should you 
ask me such a thing ? ” she said. Her inflection was 
enough to damn the entire expedition. 

Judge Bogart sat back in his chair. He raised his 
eyes to the ceiling with the air of registering an im¬ 
portant bit of evidence. “ Umph,” he said slowly, 
“ just what I thought.” He pulled down his lower 
lip, and looked at his sister. “ Precisely what I 
thought. It seems that I,” repeated the Judge, star¬ 
ing, “ must take my own daughter in hand.” 

“ Now, now,” said Miss Aurelia, with a frightened 
attempt to palliate; “nobody needs to take Sard in 

hand. Why, she, they-” But her brother waved 

her to some strange dungeon existing in his own mind. 

“ You are acting in the capacity of Sard’s mother,” 
he said grandiloquently; “ you have failed. It was 
for you to have watched over her and to have kept 
her from entangling matters, the sort of thing a hot¬ 
headed girl gets into. You ought to know-” The 

Judge grimly paused. 

But Miss Reely felt that it was not entirely discreet 
to understand this inference that she “ought to know.” 

“ How should I know ? ” She tossed her head. “ I 
never thought about such things, but,” suddenly her 





200 


UNDER THE LAW 


old manner returned, “you are mistaken about Sard. 
It is only the under-dog she is interested in. Look at 
her about Terence O’Brien, and she has never even 
seen him. She’s been interested in under-dogs ever 
since she came home from college. I never realized 
it,” confessed Miss Aurelia with a nervous cough, 
“ until Dunstan gave her that box at Christmas labeled 
4 Under-dog Biscuits/ and it had twenty-five dollars 
in it for Sard to give to tramps.” Miss Aurelia, in 
spite of her perturbation, could not help the slight 
tremor of a smile, but she sought to propitiate her 
brother. 44 Of course,” she confessed, 44 Sard isn’t ex¬ 
actly my idea of a lady, not a bit like her mother. 
But she may grow more like her.” 

The man and woman in the Bogart dining-room in¬ 
stinctively conjured up this possible resemblance to 
Sard’s mother, to the little curls and rows of buttons, 
the little rings and chains and bracelets, the tiny web 
of handkerchief and the sweet smell of scented lace 
over a tightly corseted little bosom. Poor Miss Aure¬ 
lia, standing timidly back of her brother’s chair, tried 
faithfully to see her niece formed on this pattern and 
utterly failed. 

44 The girls seem different nowadays. I don’t know 
what it is,” she complained, 44 they take long steps. 
They are—um—healthier. Don’t you know how they 
shake hands with you as if they said, 4 Well, what are 
you good for?’” Miss Aurelia pondered. 44 1 was so 
different in my own youth,” she sighed; 44 you remem¬ 
ber, brother, I spent much of my time in bed taking 
medicine.” 


A GOOD NAME 


201 


“ Well, it kept you a lady, and a fool,” snapped 
Judge Bogart. Now he rose from his luncheon chair 
with the effect of charging the jury. 

“ You can tell Sard if you don’t want me to; my 
time—my time,” emphasized Judge Bogart impres¬ 
sively, “ may come later, that she is to drop all asso¬ 
ciation with this Gentleman-John tramp of hers. 
Make her ashamed. Make her see the vulgarity of 

the thing. If she rebels, why then-” said Judge 

Bogart darkly, as he stood there pulling down his lip, 
looking at his sister. “ There’s just one thing I won’t 
have,” he said emphatically, “ a taste for low company. 
Sard has that.” He turned, surveying his relative 
narrowly. “ Even that little poll-parrot Minga has 
more pride. The girl will have to learn that she’s my 
daughter, not the friend of Tom, Dick and Harry, but 
my daughter. Tell her that, do you understand, my 
daughter!” The Judge stood staring; he finished in 
the voice he used so successfully in the court-room. 
“If she can’t take your advice, she’ll take my orders.” 
At some thoughts of the girl, clear, steady, the Judge’s 
lower lip snarled. His legs seemed not to hold him up 
well. He became a curious, insecure mass of anger. 

Somehow after that the whole house looked differ¬ 
ent to Miss Aurelia. She suddenly saw things through 
the eyes of youth, youth trying to lift itself up and 
away on broad paths of sympathy and justice. She 
saw a common condition of things where the parent 
forgets to grow but stands stiffly like a mile-post, 
pointing proudly to a road that has long been choked 
with weeds. 



202 


UNDER THE LAW 


The tall, thin lady went slowly up the stairs feeling 
somehow curiously young and chastened, like one sent 
to bed on bread and water, as if she herself were 
found guilty before this narrow tribunal. 

“ Oh! ” she panted. “ Oh, how did he ever grow 
to be like this, so terrible? He was such a good 
young man—such a good young man.” Then the 
thought that had once come to Dunstan came to his 
aunt. Perhaps no one human being ought to have 
power of life and death over other human beings; for 
this was what happened to them. This hardness and 
cold self-sufficiency, this was what happened to men 
who condemned other men to everlasting dooms. So 
when the hours waxed late and the young people had 
not returned the good lady wandered from room to 
room like a banshee. At last she went rather desper¬ 
ately to the kitchen. 

“ Maggie, it seems late for the girls, doesn't it? 
You saw them go. Were they—er—warmly dressed?" 

“ Yes," grinned Maggie. She turned from bread 
mixing, a dab of flour on her red, kind face. “ I seen 
'em in their pants and all." 

“ Their camp costumes," observed Miss Aurelia, 
with dignity. 

“ Camp or no camp," observed Maggie, with the 
privilege of a good cook who knows her value, “ them 
pants is something terrible. That Minga! such things 
will bring one doom or another onto her." 

Maggie turned to Dora. “ Look at them actresses," 
she observed, “ and where do they end ? It ain't no 
way for a lady to dress, them pants." 


A GOOD NAME 


203 


But the waitress, with some sense of her mistress* 
anxiety, tried to soothe. “ It ain’t so late. Miss Bo¬ 
gart, and they had their steamer rugs. The girls is 
always careful; at least. Miss Sard is, drivin’ the car 
and all. And then, too, they’ve took that there Colter 
with them.” 

Both women were evidently curious, and Cook 
paused, anxious to see how Miss Aurelia would re¬ 
ceive this bit of news. Birth and breeding, however, 
still accomplish certain reserves with the observing 
ones of the kitchen. There was no further inquiry on 
Miss Aurelia’s part. 

“ It must be tire trouble/* concluded that lady wor¬ 
riedly. “ I—they—that little depot car is rather un¬ 
certain. I have often heard Miss Sard speak of it. 

I wish-” But what she wished Miss Aurelia 

forbore to say. She started to go out of the kitchen, 
hesitated and turned back again. “ Have plenty of 
hot water for chocolate, and the electric toaster and 
jam. They might be hungry/* 

As the lady of the house departed, the two serving- 
women looked significantly at each other. 

“ So, she’s begun to worry already ? ” said Maggie, 
her own red face troubled. “ She’s seen what we seen. 
Oh, my! Wouldn’t it be awful if Miss Sard was to 
take up with such a one, poor, motherless child? 
Wouldn’t it be terrible, the Judge and all? ” 

But Dora shook her head. The girl, deepened by 
her own worries, read things more clearly in the great 
Human Book of which she was part. Mechanically 
she drifted around the kitchen in her absent-minded 



204 


UNDER THE LAW 


way of the last month. “ It ain’t that, it ain’t that,” 
she said doggedly. “ It’s that she’s the New Kind of 
girl. Look how she’s treated me. Look how she’s 
cared about my Terry. It’s the New Way, and now 
if that Colter feller is anything to her, it’s that she’s 
all caught up with pity for him. Down on his luck 
and all. She ain’t thinking of nothing. It’s the New 
Kind of girl! They don’t keep thinkin’ of fellers for 
marriage and all.” 

At a sound on the driveway, Dora went to the win¬ 
dow. 

“Automobiles,” she announced. “ That’s them! 
My! but I’m glad.” Both women breathed dramatic 
sighs of relief, and opened the kitchen door gladly to 
see Sard’s hatless flying figure. 

“ Maggie—Dora,” Sard was breathless, “ don’t fuss 
or make any noise, but run up and turn down Miss 
Minga’s bed and get hot-water bottles and hot drinks. 
You see, she got into a bog and fainted. She may 
still be a little chilled. Anyway, she might have 
drowned, but for Colter. Here, this way, Colter.” 

Down the garden path from the garage came the 
little group: Colter, the man on the place, bearing the 
small figure, eyes languidly fluttering, drenched in 
clammy camping things. Dunstan, stony and snap¬ 
pish, was carrying the picnic impedimenta. Shipman, 
an amused look in his eyes, stood about wondering 
whether he hadn’t better get out, yet taking curious 
pleasure in watching Sard’s selfless efficiency. On en¬ 
countering Miss Aurelia in the dim hall, he pulled 
himself together. 


A GOOD NAME 


205 


“ Oh! ” gasped the rabbity mouth, “ you will tell me, 
perhaps. There is no danger. You are a doctor ?” 
Sard had brushed by her aunt, refusing to answer the 
torrents of questions. Miss Aurelia was now almost 
in tears. 

“No danger.” Shipman's voice, full of his con¬ 
trolled human tenderness, always influenced people at 
once. It surrounded Miss Aurelia like a wall against 
which the shaky lady leaned like a slender wandering 
vine of femininity. She now leaned some more, and 
inquired, “ I thought they—you see, we know very 
little about the man Colter—was it—did he attack 
her ? ” Miss Aurelia, with sick tremulousness, put the 
question and Shipman’s eyes half gleamed with amuse¬ 
ment. The lawyer knew what a curious charnel house 
the mind of a good country woman could be. He 
knew the horrors this poor lady had visualized and 
tried to relieve her anxiety. His polished concern 
soothed her enormously. 

“ Your man Colter was very clever,” he observed 
quietly, “ and resourceful. Quite a superior person, I 
should say. He got to Miss Gerould first. The rest 
of us had not heard her screams. She had floundered 
into a deep bog and then fainted from fear, so that 
the thing might have been pretty nasty. Then Colter 
got stuck himself and we had to pry them both out. 
Rather muddy work.” Shipman held out his hands, 
on which the swamp muck still left traces. His clothes 
were stained with boggy ooze. 

“You—you are telling me the truth?” gasped Miss 
Aurelia excitedly. “ The Judge will demand the ex- 


206 UNDER THE LAW 

act truth, and you—you are a stranger. I can’t be 
sure.” She was shaking quite pitifully. 

Shipman looked soberly down on her. “ H’m! ” he 
breathed. “ H’m, hysteria, and not all from the anxi¬ 
ety, either.” What had gotten this flabby little soul 
with the pretty complexion and hair into this state? 
Surely not five hours’ absence on the part of two 
strong, independent girls. Had the Judge been ful¬ 
minating? Suddenly the lawyer grasped something, 
something that he thought might become serious trou¬ 
ble for Sard. Shipman stood silent for a moment 
thinking. He asked, “ By the way, is Judge Bogart 
in ? Would this be a stupidly inconvenient time to see 
him? He is to try the case, I believe, in the O’Brien 
matter. I am counsel for the boy. I wonder-” 

Miss Aurelia, enjoying her vine-like repose on the 
strength of the personality of the “ strange man,” 
quivered a little. “ I could find out,” she said. She 
faltered. “ I assume that you are telling me the 
truth, that you have no—no dreadful news to give my 
brother ? ” 

Shipman’s tenderness was a natural and beautiful 
thing. It went out instinctively to troubled men and 
women. He took the thin, fluttering hands in his. 

“ Miss Bogart, it has been jolly to meet you in this 
informal way. I want to know you better. Please 
don’t be troubled, please! Let me find Judge Bogart 
myself. You go to bed and rest.” 

“ But—I—you—he—they,” began Miss Aurelia, her 
color glowing, her hysteria vanishing. She was fairly 
thrilled with flutters. 



A GOOD NAME 


207 


He stood over her, and shook a warning finger. 

“ You go to bed,” he commanded sternly, “ you go 
to bed.” 

With a sigh of relief, Miss Aurelia obeyed him. 
She led him first to the door of the Judge's study and 
Shipman stood watching her slender figure mount the 
stairs. Then he knocked. The “ Come in ” was 
snapped in the voice the Judge kept for his family, 
and Watts Shipman, with a shrug, entered. 

Dunstan was standing on the hearth rug. The boy 
had rings under his eyes; his mouth was eager and 
breathless, as he had evidently felt the failure of 
some protest to his father. 

“All I say is,” concluded the Judge drily, “ is that 
I want no more of this Colter rot. When your sister 
wants to go on expeditions similar to to-day, you ac¬ 
company her! ” 

The lad stood there silent. The Judge recognized 
the famous lawyer with a curt gesture. “ Sit down, 
sit down. I'm trying to make this young man under¬ 
stand that he is responsible for his sister's character 
and behavior; that they both live under one law, the 
law of a good name.” 

Dunstan's face was afire. He stood facing his fa¬ 
ther. “ You call it a good name to suggest that my 
sister needs my protection ? ” asked the lad ironically. 
“ Ah, a good name,” the boy choked. “ A name that 
means finicking and fussing and being afraid and 
continually thinking of evil. Well, I don’t believe 
either Sard or I want that kind of good name.” 

He finished with a curious gesture of despair, a 


208 


UNDER THE LAW 


gesture that Shipman, standing soberly by, understood 
at once. He loved the young fellow for it, for it was 
Sard's own gesture. ** Give us realities, realities of 
sympathy and help and cleanness and good will. Do 
not ask us to bow our heads under your standards of 
what appears well." That was what the gesture said. 

" Leave the room," commanded the Judge, “ leave 
the room." Dunstan, with a strange little look at the 
lawyer, went out. Judge Bogart turned; in his hand 
was a box of cigars. “ I don't know what’s come over 
the young people of to-day." His voice was brassy 
with anger. 

Shipman took a cigar, held it lightly, then with a 
gleam of eyes, half closed, to watch the match. 
“ Young people," he said, “ must often wonder what 
has come over us." The two men deliberately meas¬ 
ured each other. Then the talk turned to the O’Brien 
case. What they said was purely superficial, but the 
lawyer, raising interesting questions of technicality, 
wondered if he was not perhaps the means of saving 
Sard a lecture. A Winged Victory must have gotten 
to bed by this time. Watts smiled. When at last he 
rose to go he gestured toward the disheveled condition 
of his walking things. 

“ I ought to have apologized. We got caught in a 
bog looking for pink pearls." He was mirthful at his 
own share in the escapade. “ Quite a youthful time," 
he laughed. 

“ Humph! ” Judge Bogart eyed the other man curi¬ 
ously. “ You found some fine pearls ? " 

“ Your man Colter picked up one. Seemed to know 


A GOOD NAME 209 

how to look; he seems rather well informed.” The 
lawyer paused. Perhaps this was an opening. 

Judge Bogart reached up to snap out the light. 
“ If you're going to walk up the mountain/' he re¬ 
marked curtly, “ the back door is your best exit/' 


CHAPTER XVIII 

THE TAWNY TROOP METHOD 

The dance at the Willow Roads Country Club took 
place the night before Terry O’Brien’s trial. Watts, 
with some feeling of wanting the life pulses of the 
Minga Bunch about him, went leisurely down the 
mountain road clad in the golf tweeds against which a 
club dance would not discriminate. As he looked in 
through the long windows that opened on the river, the 
lawyer was thinking that the indiscretions and bold 
franchises of the youth of the day were somehow, 
though coarser, a less harmful thing than the evasions 
and concealments of earlier days. One thing the man, 
staring in upon the throngs watching the little cubs of 
the “ stag line ” with their important faces, noting the 
calm, inexpressive faces of the girls, would have asked 
for—enthusiasm. Watts reviewed the whole his¬ 
tory of the dance, Bacchante and stately minuet and 
folk dance, gigue and morrice, and wondered what 
good the dance was without the laughing lips, the light 
of the eyes, the merry face. He saw the young fig¬ 
ures of the girls coming down the staircase, faces 
washed of all human expression, calm, subtle, in some 
instances of a Cleopatra-like Eastern subtlety, but 
never gay. The tall, dark man, accustomed to read¬ 
ing faces, wondered if indeed gayety had gone out of 

the world. “ Gayety,” thought Watts, “ means inno- 

210 


THE TAWNY TROOP METHOD 211 

cence. Perhaps in a machine-run world there can be 
no innocence.” 

Down the staircase they came, scarlet and white 
satin, blue tulle, black tulle, pretty gold and silver slip¬ 
pers. Little necks filmy with powder, smooth heads, 
coiled, puffed and banded, long white arms, smooth 
white sides visible to the waist. Feet and legs devoid 
of grace, thickened by athletics and crudely pushed 
and planted in the unlovely strutting dances, yet not so 
unnatural, not so different, just young things pushed 
about by the great Energy—Life. 

Any ballroom, the lawyer knew, spells but one thing. 
In spite of its protected, assured air, its look of flow¬ 
ered convention and jeweled dames playing propriety, 
it is, in all truth, the scene of the play of young blood, 
the attraction of young creatures. Since the days of 
the excitement over Byron's “ Waltz ” the eternal 
comment of men and women, wall-flowers and chap¬ 
erons evades this evident truth and registers the same 
objection to all that is not sentimental convention. 

But ballrooms go on existing. Watts, with a smile, 
wondered how many dances were in full blast along 
the Hudson River, so many fields of flower-pollen 
flying that Friday night. His mind wandered back 
over the fair old stately days of the great mansions of 
the early Americans. He thought about Colonial 
dances up and down this river, visualized homes along 
the great stream, the time of Cooper’s “ Satanstoe,” 
of Irving’s homesteads, of belles of the Revolution 
and the days of Lincoln. Shipman, with his own pe¬ 
culiar imagination, reviewed the youth and beauty of 


212 


UNDER THE LAW 


those days when, we are told, youth was so pure and 
innocent, beauty so lovely and soft and mild and bid¬ 
dable. 

Yet the lawyer, staring at the purple night of river, 
pondered. If old pictures and old letters told the 
truth there was always, even in those crinolines, in 
those little cream and rouge pots and dainty curls and 
fichus, Revolt. Who, dear indignant Mama, wore 
those exceedingly decollete ball gowns where half the 
bosom was exposed ? Does not old poetry hint at de¬ 
licious skins, and curves and fragrances and coiled 
enticements? Watts grinned. “ Funny/' the man 
thought, “ it was all a heap more sensuous than those 
skinny little muscular worldlings in there, only it was 
unconscious. The Victorian tradition was somehow 
able to have kisses stolen and little ankles noted and a 
fervid, tight clasping waltz danced without for one 
moment facing what the thing meant; so mid-Victori¬ 
ans got by with little censure; but it was far away 
from frankness and honesty and truth.” 

The tall, dark man staring through the windows 
caught sight of Minga, standing alone near the en¬ 
trance, and he hastened toward her. The girl in the 
blue gown with its orange butterflies had a curious 
look of defiance and of being at bay that the lawyer 
instantly noticed. Watts bent over her with real ten¬ 
derness. The little bobbed head was held very high. 

“ All alone ? ” The lawyer was no habitue of stag 
lines; he did not know that this was a fatal thing to 
say to a girl of Minga’s group. But the music struck 
up, and he, a lover of music and dancing, felt the an- 


THE TAWNY TROOP METHOD 213 

swering striking up of his being. “ Will you dance? ” 
he asked her, a little awkwardly. 

To the man’s surprise, Minga, with a curious little 
catch of the breath, almost flung herself into his clasp. 
Considering the difference in their height, they went 
well together. Watts, with a sort of boyish pride, saw 
the wondering, derisive glance of the important “ stag 
line ” as they slid by. The room rapidly filled; the 
babel and clash of the regulation dance was on. 

Shipman loved dancing almost childishly. His 
head, dappled dark, was picturesque; the curious grim 
look of his dark face made him conspicuous among 
the couples that interlaced each other in pacing, glid¬ 
ing, backing measures. Miss Aurelia, seated in a row 
of commenting elders, noticed Minga, her vivid face 
laid not too restrainedly along the dark line of the 
lawyer’s arm; she indicated this to Sard, who had 
brought Tawny Troop up to introduce him. 

“ My dear! ” Miss Aurelia in gray satin and lace 
was pontifical, “ Isn’t Minga too familiar, a little con¬ 
spicuous? Mr. Shipman is such a dignified man. I’m 
sure he doesn’t like it; but, of course, he doesn’t know 
what to do. What man would ? ” 

Sard smiled. “ Mr. Shipman always does know 
what to do. If he thinks Minga oughtn’t to do that, 
he’ll tell her so; but I don’t believe he thinks so.” 

“ Oh! ” breathed Miss Aurelia; she spoke behind 
her handkerchief to the friend on the other side. 
“ Happy little Sard,” she said sentimentally, “ so loyal; 
she quite spoils Minga Gerould,” breathed Miss Au¬ 
relia. 


214 


UNDER THE LAW 


It was the regular ballroom twaddle. Oceans of 
this stuff is talked by watching, waiting chaperons, 
who believe each other’s statements with credulity and 
an unoriginality quite wonderful in the face of what is 
actually happening before them. Miss Reely turned 
back to Sard. “ I wish you girls,”—she dropped her 
handkerchief; the exquisite Tawny restored it—“I 
wish you girls understood what charm delicacy and— 
er—modesty have for a man.” Tawny nodded. “ I’m 
for it myself,” he remarked sympathetically. 

“ But Minga doesn’t want to charm a man, espe¬ 
cially,” said Sard gaily. “ She just likes to dance 
that way because everybody’s doing it; she’s probably 
sorry she doesn’t reach farther up Shipman’s arm be¬ 
cause that would look more like the picture in 
‘ Vogue.’ ” Sard, motioning to the other cheek-to- 
cheek couples, nodded mischievously at Shipman. 
Her own first dance had been instantly taken and 
with a lively glow of color and enthusiasm she was 
somehow glad to have the lawyer see it to be so. She 
cast an appreciative eye on Minga’s little azure form 
with its butterfly corsage, the soft arms bare and free. 

“ Isn’t she a darling? ” she turned to Tawny Troop. 
“ You don’t know how lucky you are.” 

To her astonishment the youth swept her with 
raised eyebrows, eyes of nonchalance. “ Oh, I say, 
didn’t you know that was off?” said Troop with his 
best hotel accent. 

To his suggestion that they should dance again she 
took her easy position. Sard was the instinctively 
high-bred dancer, the kind of a girl who without af- 


THE TAWNY TROOP METHOD 215 

fectation can give herself and her partner instant dis¬ 
tinction, with a poise, an eclat of rhythmic motion 
that is very rare. Now as they circled the room she 
looked up to the smooth face of the elegant Tawny. 

“ What did you mean about yours and Minga’s 
engagement ? Surely you haven’t quarreled ? ” 

“ I’ve broken it,” announced the youth distastefully. 
Tawny drew himself up with an air. “ I couldn’t 
stand that last fandango of hers,” said young Tawny. 
“ Don’t want to marry a tough.” 

The music stopped with a splurge. Sard stood star¬ 
ing at the young fellow. “You’ve broken it?” her 
glance went quickly to Minga, who was leaving the 
ballroom with Shipman,—the dark head bent down to 
the little curly bob. “ Oh-h! ” Sard accused him 
mockingly. “You’re jealous! you couldn’t mean that 
about Minga! She’s everybody’s sweetheart; she al¬ 
ways will be. Why, even my father-” 

Young Troop stiffened. “ I don’t mind ordinary 

things, the game, you know—I-” Tawny had the 

grace to hesitate, then snapped, quite finally for one 
of his youth—“ I like any line that’s decent, but when 
you see your fiancee in the arms of a hired man, a 
tramp she’s spent the whole afternoon with, why 


“ What do you mean ? ” asked Sard. 

Tawny Troop, a young person of not very fine in¬ 
stinct, had forgotten or did not know the mettle of 
the girl to whom he spoke. 

“ Oh, it’s nothing against Minga; she can do what 
she likes, but,” with insufferable American swagger, 





216 


UNDER THE LAW 


“she’s forfeited the Troop jewels; she doesn’t wear 
my brown diamonds any more, that’s all.” He laid 
a hand on Sard’s arm. “ Don’t eat the air,” he sug¬ 
gested. 

Sard switched away from his hand; her eyes hotly 
repudiated him. “ Do you care to explain ? ” the girl 
asked coldly. “ Minga Gerould is my friend, you 
understand, visiting me; if you have anything to say 
I will hear it.” 

Tawny stood irresolute. He had a grudge against 
Dunstan Bogart; it was well to make this girl, Dun- 
stan’s sister, feel something. The alert young bantam 
figure of the unformed boy-of-the-world took an un¬ 
lovely attitude of assured insolence. Tawny smiled, 
his thick lower lip in a sneer. “ I’ve got the Gang 
with me,” he said in a low tone. “ We all know you 
and Minga hunt in couples; you hang together be¬ 
cause you’re peculiar in your tastes—what? Only, 
when that hired man of yours shows his preference 
for one of you, the lovey-dovey business will crack! 
See what I mean ? ” 

They stood on the piazza that overhung the river. 
The night boat, like a great caterpillar, set with golden 
jewels, forged up midstream. The search-lights with 
their white eyes probed the bank, moving over pali¬ 
sade and promontory. Now a white ray picked out 
some millionaire’s home on the east bank, now some 
white temple-like building on the west, now it shot 
up to the sky, now it rested like the long honey-suck¬ 
ing tube of a great moth on some arbored, flower¬ 
like cottage along the rocky shore. 


THE TAWNY TROOP METHOD 217 


The music had begun again; this time it had an 
Indian plaint, a long skirling cadence that might 
have been sung in days gone by among the rocks and 
trees of these very shores by a red maiden standing 
wrapped in her blanket on a moonlit crest or staring 
with great burning eyes into the rising sun. Sard 
saw Watts and Minga go back into the ballroom; 
the rose-colored light played over the little face lifted 
to the man’s dark tenderness. Sard looked after them 
uneasily. “ Everyone looks like that at Minga, but 

—but it would be different if Watts Shipman-” 

Sard suddenly realized the power of the personality 
that was shadowing Minga. Before this, the girl had 
seen Shipman dominate things; did he then guess the 
thing she herself was just learning? Were there pro¬ 
tection and care in the grim face with its look of 
power and divining? Sard’s eyes suddenly filled with 
quick tears. “ I could kill Tawny,” the girl told her¬ 
self. “ I could kill him if-” but the “ if ” that 

dwelt in her heart Sard would not allow herself to say. 
She looked out on the river and spoke gently to the boy 
at her side. She thought suddenly of Colter sitting 
up there in the room over the garage with his books 
and magnifying glass. It made her quiet. To be like 
Colter, calm and patient with things, that was what 
she must try. 

“ You mustn’t mistake,” she said with almost 
womanly kindness. “ Shan’t we sit here and talk in¬ 
stead of dancing? I’d like,” Sard spoke with her 
curious motherly little air of concern, “ I’d like to 
know precisely what you meant by that last speech. 




218 


UNDER THE LAW 


You mustn’t say things like that, you know, it's not 
done. If you apologize, I can explain to you about 
Colter, but not unless," said Sard with girlish dignity, 
“ not unless." 

Then Troop, the product of unlimited wealth, un¬ 
limited license, turned and showed his true blood. 
All his essential commonness, his cheap values and 
squalid assumptions leaped to life. Sard looked with 
the loathing of her true aristocracy of the spirit on 
the shoddy training of this boy, who had the assurance 
and ease of a young prince. 

“ I wasn't born yesterday," Tawny insisted spite¬ 
fully; the sensuous lines from his nose down to his lip 
deepened. “ What I saw on the Hackensack was 
enough for me," said Tawny. "My faith! what a 
girl will do nowadays! Of course—Cinny," he laughed 
viciously, " but Minga Gerould, who could go any¬ 
where !" 

Sard almost giggled; the words gave Tawny away. 
Young Troop thought still of " going to " places other 
people were born to. The girl, instinctively disliking 
him, yet instinctively parleyed with him. Sard, alive 
to her world, to the quick back-action of the Minga 
group, thought she could see Gertrude’s hand in this. 
That young person who schemed, who desired things, 
who had unknown to Minga invited Tawny to the 
house and to the Hackensack picnic and to this ball. 
Gertrude was a young person who desired things. 
Gertrude knew the history of the famous Troop en¬ 
gagement ring and saw no reason why she should not 
add it to the golden snake collection. Also, there had 


THE TAWNY TROOP METHOD 219 

undoubtedly been aspects of the day on the Hacken¬ 
sack that Gertrude must turn to other than their 
rightful conclusions. Sard remembered the shrill 
screaming, the maudlin sounds of gayety; she had 
questioned Dunstan, who had flushed and turned away 
growling. “ Well,—we didn’t find any pearls, that’s 
all; no, I’ll say we didn’t find any pearls,” this with 
saturnine inflection. Sard sat looking at the opposite 
river shore strung with blue-gold lights, fruited like 
long lines of orchards. Suddenly the girl saw the 
world as in the old days court ladies must have seen 
it, wanting to cry and bite out their little tongues or 
the little tongues of other women. The spiteful small 
messes of intrigue, the contemptible inference and 
origins of personal slander. 

“As far as I can see,” came Tawny's drawling, 
slightly nasal tones, “ the girl was off with your hired 
man chasing around those swamps; why she wanted 
to jump into a bog with him I don’t know, or was it 
to get away from him? Any old boy would have 
done, I dare say.” Tawny laughed his cracked, old 
man’s laugh. “ Of course, you all covered the thing 
up pretty well. She’s vamping that lawyer now! 
Well, I must say she likes ’em old.” 

Sard, utterly generous, utterly untainted of mind, 
could hardly take this fellow in. She leaned forward 
anxiously. “ You mean,” she said gravely, “ oh, what 
are you trying to say ? ” 

Young Troop had risen; something craven in him 
made him aware that it might not be best to stay and 
face such real emotion. Anger in Sard might be a 


220 


UNDER THE LAW 


difficult thing to laugh off. He admired her while he 
feared her. Now a breezy, heated throng spilled out 
of the long doors onto the piazza; the girls perched 
upon the rails and let the river breeze cool their hot 
faces, while the boys leaned against pillars, hands in 
pockets, getting off the time-honored persiflage of the 
young dancing swain. Tawny saw Gertrude, in black 
net, still entwined by the golden serpents and with a 
green jade circlet round her dark hair. The great 
dramatic eyes summoned him. “ Thanks, awfully 
much,” he drawled in the silly parlance of the “ star ” 
dancer. “I'll say I enjoyed it; that was some little 
fox trot, what?” Tawny was edging away when 
Sard Bogart, with a curious gesture of command, 
stopped him. 

“ You mustn’t think you—you can go on with this 
sort of thing,” the girl said in a low voice. “ That 
inference of yours stops right here; no matter what 
there is between you and Minga—you—you can’t go 
on saying things.” The now rather dismayed Tawny 
found himself once more against the Bogart direct¬ 
ness, and squirmed uncomfortably. 

“ Oh, forget it—I’ve ‘ destroyed the papers/ ” he 
quoted with dramatic raillery. “ Minga won’t get 
shown up by me.” Again Gertrude looking over her 
partner’s shoulder summoned him. 

“Say, but isn’t Gert a looker?” breathed Tawny. 
“ I guess she wants to be rushed next dance, things 
getting a little slow for Gert; I promised to look up a 
new crowd of cut-ins for her; well, so long!” 
Tawny bowed with a curious half cross-eyed look of 


THE TAWNY TROOP METHOD 221 


sneaking amusement. His eyes were smouldering 
with a caddish kind of excitement; he could afford to 
be good humored. 

“ Say, I’ll cut it out/’ he pledged. “ I'll drop the 
story; I can’t speak for the girls, Cinny and Gert and 
all, they’ve been having a lot of fun with Minga in 
the dressing-room; she took a good deal of guying, 
they say. Of course,” advised Tawny patronizingly, 
“ you ought to let her know it has made a difference 
in her popularity.” 

Just then Dunstan came up. He shoved past 
Troop, ignoring him while he elbowed him. “ Sard,” 
he said clearly, “ I must ask you to stop talking to 
this—er—cad. He has been discussing a friend of 
yours, our friend,—well, I think we don’t need him 
in our vicinity.” 

“ Your friend wiH need you both all right,” mut¬ 
tered Tawny vindictively; “she’ll need you both for 
dance partners and—and everything else! ” 

As the groups on the piazza filtered back to the ball¬ 
room, Sard seized her brother’s coat sleeve. “ Go and 
get Minga quickly,” she said, “ and Mr. Shipman if 
you can. Oh, quick, before she realizes.” 

Dunstan looked at her, his eyes quick with pas¬ 
sionate fire. “ So you’ve heard,” he said wonder- 
ingly. “ Well, that chap is about the lowest skunk; 
they don’t have hells for that kind,” said the boy 
bitterly, “ they just let them stew in their own juice.” 
But his sister would not listen; she was thinking 
quickly. 

" Go get them, dear; tell them to come out here 


222 


UNDER THE LAW 


and then order some ice-cream and we’ll make a little 
party of our own.” 

Hastily Sard devised a way to shield Minga; in¬ 
stinctively she thought of Shipman. “ Get Watts, 
too,” she urged. Dunstan saw how dark her eyes 
were and wondered. He half smiled. “ Old Dooms¬ 
day book and Sard,” he half chuckled under his per¬ 
turbation. “ What a couple of old nuts, yet not so 
bad, either.” Then he thought of Colter and bit his 
lips. 

But Dunstan, hurrying for the door and seizing 
Minga where she stood proud, bewildered, and alone, 
grabbed her in true “ cutting-in ” fashion. “ Gee, 
I’ve been waiting for this chance,” he breathed. 
“ I say, Minga, don’t you dance with your host even 
once in the evening ? ” 

She shot a swift look at him. “ Dunce,” in a low 
voice, “ the Bunch think I’m—not—nice—they’ve 
been saying things; it was Gertrude, I think,” Minga 
mocked with her little face. Her red lips quivered, 
and Dunstan, with a curious look of man determina¬ 
tion, steered her into an increasing velocity and bril¬ 
liancy of step. “ Bing! this is good music,” breathed 
the boy. “ All right, Minga, old sport, eyes right, 
head up, what? The rest of them are caterpillars 
and worms, what? And Tawny Troop is—is—is a 
butterlion—not even a chocolate pussy in a Christmas 
stocking! ” 

The gay rallying brought the bright blood to the 
vivid little face. Minga threw back her head and her 
gay laugh pealed out, which was what Dunce wanted. 


THE TAWNY TROOP METHOD 223 

" Where’s Shipman ? ” he asked, lips close to the flut¬ 
tering little head. Again the face clouded and poor 
Dunstan, his resources at an end, gave her Sard’s 
message. “ Say! ” he tried to challenge the girl, tried 
to help her keep the sweet gay insouciance, the so- 
called “ pep ” that was Minga’s greatest asset. . . . 
“ Once more around the room,” said Dunce, “ once 
more past Gertrude, the great Human Vampire— 
steady—once more past the gang of glarers,” meaning 
the chaperons, “ steady; and then out that little door 
to the right. See? and then find old Sard, see? and 
then a nice long spin out in the moonlight. Who 
wants to dance this sizzling night ? ” 

“ All—right,” breathed Minga, “ all right. Say, 
Dunce,” but while she smiled and shook her head at 
him for the benefit of the observing Bunch, Minga’s 
voice was trembling, “ say, Dunce, you aren’t a good 
—good sort—or anything like that, are you ? ” 

The boyish arm tightened. “ I’m any old thing you 
want,” he said gruffly. “ I’m any old thing you need, 
Minga.” 

Meanwhile Sard sat waiting for them, the soft 
summer night cooling the cheeks Tawny had made 
feverish. 

“ So that’s the way Minga’s law works out,” 
thought the girl slowly, “ and the law of Minga’s 
Bunch! She never even fancied this Tawny Troop. 
She took him away from another girl just for the fun 
of wearing his ring, and now Gertrude plays the same 
game. And Gertrude, because she works for it, has 
more power than Minga.” Sard, leaning forward, 


224 


UNDER THE LAW 


looking into the ballroom, watched Minga and Dunce 
finish the dance; she saw them throw back their heads 
and laugh together. 

As Dunstan and his partner joined her, Sard rose. 
“ Did you ask Mr. Shipman if he would join us? ” she 
questioned her brother; “ where is he?” But Watts, 
it seemed, could not be found, and to Sard’s surprise 
Minga seemed nearly frenzied as she stood there 
trembling like a frightened child. 

“ Sard,” the girl urged breathlessly, “ the music 
isn’t very good, is it? Do you want to stay very 
much? Mr. Shipman has g-gone up the mountain; 
he wanted to—to turn in early on account of the case 
to-morrow. Sard,” Minga gulped, “ I think this is a 

stupid dance, don’t you? Shall we go- Come 

on! 

Minga’s eyes had deep shadows under them; her 
face, under its not too well put on color, was piteous 
and woebegone. Dunstan chafed helplessly; no one 
had ever before seen Minga like this. It was insuf¬ 
ferable that any stranger should see it. The youth 
tucked her arm under his and called up all his powers 
of gay loquacity. 

“ You aren’t all fed up, Minga—not you. Oh, you 
little worn out society dame! Music not jazzy enough, 
and she says ‘ the floor is gritty ’; we’ll have to fix 
that. What! ” Dunstan, looking over his partner’s 
head, raised his eyebrows at his sister. He nodded 
violently and said with deaf-mute’s emphasized lips, 
" Take her home ! ” 

Suddenly Sard understood. Gertrude’s propaganda 



THE TAWNY TROOP METHOD 225 

had had its deadly effect. Neither she nor Minga had 
their usual eager partners. The Tawny Troop stag 
line of “ cut-ins ” was being marshaled for Gertrude 
and one or two cronies. Curiously enough the 
“ Minga Bunch/’ the devil-may-care, unrestrained 
crowd had turned and rended its gay little leader. 
The usual way had been taken. It was not a very 
new way; the way of gray-haired men and women 
for other more devoted and more highly in¬ 
spired leaders, that of unanswerable personal slander. 

The girl stood there aghast. Then she smiled a 
little disdainfully and turned to her brother. “ Will 
you drive us. Dunce ? ” she asked, “ or shall we call 
a taxi ? ” 

“ I had a dance with Cinny,” said Dunce, “ but 
she’s sitting under the trees with that fellow with the 
spook glimmers; she's vamping him for his new tennis 
racket. I’ll drive you. But,” Dunce shut his teeth 
hard, “ when I leave this bunch I leave it for good 
and all, you understand; you do too, Sard? You do 
too, Minga ? ” 

All the way home the three young things were si¬ 
lent. They saw the dark trees slide by, half piteously, 
wanting to run to them and hide their heads in their 
soft branches and tell them things. All the kind 
earth, the hills and the river, seemed maternal, strong 
to their hot hearts, burning with scorn and contempt. 
Dunstan knew painfully his own part in the miserable 
intrigue. Tawny and Gertrude merely revenged 
themselves, and they had taken it out on little, jolly, 
happy Minga. As the girls got out, Dunstan stopped 


226 


UNDER THE LAW 


his car in a kind of blare of cut-out and racing en¬ 
gine; it was like getting off the blast of his own 
feelings. The boy groaned “ good-bye ” and was 
gone. 

Sard undressed in the moonlight. There was no 
other light in her room, and so she had not pulled the 
shades down. The trees towered into the white moon¬ 
lit sky and she saw the orange-colored glow over the 
garage where Colter sat reading. The man’s curious 
calm life of books and plants, the way he kept aloof 
yet was ready and effective, above all his patient 
helplessness before the awful dark of his memory, 
swept over the girl. Sard looked at her bed. “ I 
can’t sleep to-night,” she said. “ I want to talk, to 

talk to someone—I want-” Sard went slowly 

and looked up at the mountain where the organ 
builder’s house loomed back of the sky. She thought 
of Shipman and smiled a little but lightly shook her 
head. “ No,” she said, “ he’s kind, kind, wonderfully 

kind and strong, but-” The girt, a white crepe 

wrapper over her nightgown, looked long and sol¬ 
emnly at Colter’s light; suddenly the orange square 
darkened. . . . The man was lying now on his 

narrow bed, the sweep of hair off that forehead Sard 
knew so well, the long, fine hands lying careless and 
relaxed, the fine sensitive face swept with its look of 
suffering, perhaps already drowned in the great black 
waves of sleep. Did sleep ever bring back to Colter 
his birthright, did he ever see in dreams familiar faces 
or hear voices? Sard found herself kneeling at the 
window watching the dark window, her face flushed. 




THE TAWNY TROOP METHOD 227 

“ I wonder who he is,” breathed the girl, “ oh, if I 
could only tell him who he is. If I could bring Light 
to him! ” Sard knelt, staring out into the dark, her 
face hot, her heart pounding. 

“ I can’t stand this,” she muttered. “ I—I feel 
desperate, queer to-night. I might run out into the 
night, anywhere, to anyone. I wonder! oh, I won¬ 
der -” 

Suddenly she got up from her crouching position; 
with tawny hair falling, tossing back from her fore¬ 
head, she caught up a little pocket flash and holding 
it before her carefully felt her way down the tower- 
room stairs to Minga’s room. Sard knocked softly. 
“ May I come in? You aren’t asleep? ” 

There was no answer. The older girl gently turned 
the knob and looked in. The room was in moonlit 
whiteness. There, still in her rumpled blue and or¬ 
ange, the little butterfly back bare, the arms tossed 
frantically out, she lay, the whole figure prey to 
sweeping and tearing things. Minga was curled up 
on the bed. There was no doubt about the little shiv¬ 
ers and shakes, she was sobbing. 

“ Minga—precious ! ” Something big and devastat¬ 
ing tore through the older girl’s senses. She felt sud¬ 
denly old, like Minga’s mother. This motherliness, 
though Sard did not know it, was a keystone to her 
being; it was the thing Shipman had half seen, it was 
the beautiful balance of the Winged Victory. The 
girl sat quietly down on the bed; so this was another 
Law for her then; she must know keenly and help¬ 
lessly the sorrow of others, she must blindly strive to 



228 UNDER THE LAW 

learn how to help. Dora, Colter, and now little gay 
Minga. 

“ Minga,” urged the girl, pitifully, “ don’t cry like 
that—why, it’s not that silly Bunch, is it? We don’t 
care for them, we have other friends. Watts Ship- 

man and—and-” Sard went a little vaguely over 

a possible list of “ other friends.” There was no an¬ 
swer, and she leaned down, trying to raise the buried 
face. “ Honey, can’t I know ? ” then urgently, 
“ Minga, don’t cry like that, it’s—it’s self-pity, isn’t 
it ? ” Sard groped about to give expression to a 
thought that was hardly formed in her. “ I suppose 
self-pity’s one thing we must never, never let our¬ 
selves have,” the girl said softly. 

There was a sudden cessation of sobs, and Minga 
slowly raising on her elbows turned up in the half 
light a broken face. 

“ I can’t help ♦ . . pitying myself. . . . 

I’ve been so—so crazy; and now,” shuddering, “ I 
can’t play any more.” 

“ You poor little thing, poor little thing,” Sard 
paused, her hand passed over the tousled head. This 
young face and hand were inexperienced, but Sard 
was like a pilot trying to pierce mists. “ I guess we’ve 
always got to play,” she said, “ even when we—well, 
that Punchinello idea, you know. But anyway, 
Minga, you mustn’t cry like that because it’s wrong; 
it does something to your nerves. I remember they 
said it in the psychology class.” 

“ But I’ve done an awful thing,” wept Minga. She 
sat up suddenly. “ Sard, you don’t know what I did 



THE TAWNY TROOP METHOD 229 


to-night.” Minga lifted her hand and passed it 
swiftly over her face as if she would brush away 
some new look of shame and repeated: 

“ I’ve done the awful thing; I wouldn’t have cared 
if it had been anyone else, but I felt wild after I had 
given Tawny back his ring and I thought I’d take a 
chance and so, oh, Sard, while we were dancing I told 
Watts Shipman I loved him, and told him in a silly 
way, a Cinny, Gertrude way, and that’s the awful 
thing; for you see, Sard, I do love him. Oh, I do, 
I do,” cried poor little Minga. “ But I told him in 
that way, and he doesn’t respect me.” 

Sard, rocked by a surprise that bordered very nearly 
on hysterical laughter, crept up closer to the little 
sufferer. 

“ My hat! ” she said in awed tones. Her hair swept 
over her leaning face; she pushed it back. “ My hat! ” 

Minga fell on her friend, burying her face in this 
long veil of hair. “ I did—I did—I couldn’t seem to 
help it—I was wild, you see, and I needed a friend, 
a sort of fatherly person, don’t you know.” Minga 
lifted her face and looked at her chum helplessly. 
“ He is the only person that ever scolded me and 
made me mind, and so, you see, I loved him.” There 
was a long silence, then, “ I think he’s wonderful. I 
thought maybe he could make me—make me—better.” 

Sard, with a rush of understanding, threw her arms 
around the forlorn figure. 

“ Poor little thing,” she crooned. 

“ No,” said Minga with a kind of shudder, “ not 
that any more, Sard. I guess I’m different now; I 


230 


UNDER THE LAW 


guess I’ve got to be a nut or high-brow or something. 
I’ve got to grow bigger, you see,” with a piteous ges¬ 
ture. “ I thought he might grow to care if he knew 
I did, and I told him. It was out by that fountain, 
you know, and the—the water seemed like tears.” 
Minga’s eyes widened over her own poetic thought. 
“ My goodness,” she ejaculated, “ I’ll always think of 
that now when I see that fountain.” Then she went 
on, “ But when I told him,” the young voice broke a 
little piteously, “ he just took my two hands as if he 
was going to sort of hold me from myself and him¬ 
self. Oh, a terrible way and then he said . . . 
he just said, * You are a very dear little thing, you are 
a very dear little thing ’—and it was finished,” said 
Minga with her childish gulp. “ I couldn’t screech or 
howl and make him come back. I—I didn’t even try. 
He just walked away from me. It was like a play, 
only awful; he walked right straight toward the 
mountain—I saw him in the moonlight and now,” 
said Minga, “ I—I have this awful ache.” 

There was a long silence, Sard trying to understand 
this change in her friend. She began suddenly to see 
as if unrolled on a flaming scroll another great law of 
lives like Minga’s, that whoever tries to control them 
will lose them, but whoever knows how to control 
them and does not try has them bound fast and sub¬ 
missive. In the new days of the rapid rising of 
women this fact contains a new challenge for men. 
There is no reason why women should not rise but 
there also is no reason why men, once superior, now 
rapidly being rated as inferior, at least by women, 


THE TAWNY TROOP METHOD 231 


should not look into this challenge. If woman grows 
more fine, why should not a man also rise and create 
a new fineness that shall still dominate her and make 
her happy in that mastery for which she will forever 
ask. 

The moonlight shone through the long luxurious 
rooms, the silver patterns threw their strange symbols 
on the floor until almost morning, and the dawn be¬ 
came a steadiness of gray and rose. 

When at last they parted, Sard looked thoughtfully 
at her friend. “ The trial’s on to-day,” she said 
slowly, “ and the Bunch are all mad, so they won’t 
go; and I don’t think you ought to go, Minga.” 

“ Just the same, I shall,” whispered Minga dog¬ 
gedly. “ I’m going with Dunce.” Then a thought 
struck her. “ Oh, Sard, did Dunce tell you what 
Judgie is going to do to Colter? ” 

The other girl started. “ Do to Colter! ” Sard 
paused at the door, her face scared inquiry through 
the dawn-light. 

“ Well,” Minga was sleepily yawning, “ I think 
Dunce said that Judgie had heard some of all this 
mess and so he had told Colter to get out. He seems 
to think it doesn’t do to have a gentleman—well, you 
know what I mean, for a hired man, anyway.” Minga, 
seeing her friend’s face, was a little nervous. “ That’s 
what Dunce said; you’d better ask him. Imagine! ” 
said little heavy-eyed Minga. “ Imagine ! ” 

Something slow, defined, inevitable crept around 
Sard’s heart, with a shiver; the girl tried to face it, 
tried with her ardent and alert soul to know it for 


232 


UNDER THE LAW 


what it was. It was hate, and it was hate of her fa¬ 
ther. She trembled slightly, for as she looked into 
her heart and saw that dark shape of Hate lying at 
its door, she heard a soft whisper again in her ear; 
little curls tickled her ears, soft whispering came to 
her and her head was laid on a soft pulsating little 
breast. 

“ We aren’t afraid of Foddy, little Sard; we love 
him; he won’t put us in prison.” 

Softly closing the door, softly stumbling up the 
steps to the tower-room, the girl tried to put these 
things against that dark shape lying across the thresh¬ 
old of her heart. “ Oh, but he has put me in prison,” 
she sobbed, “ he has put me in prison—I—I—could 
never make him understand.” Sard threw herself 
face downward on her bed. The birds were all sing¬ 
ing, the sun came with bright morning over the happy 
sparkle of the river. A girl lay tearless before the 
dark shape of hate and the memory of love and be¬ 
fore a slow dawning of a new feeling she could not 
name, the old cry came: 

“ Oh, Mother! ” whispered Sard. “ Oh, Mother! 
Mother! ” 


CHAPTER XIX 


OLD LETTERS 

The week before Terence O’Brien’s trial Watts had 
gone for one of his rare visits to Eleanor Ledyard’s 
home in its low valley of the Ramapos. He found 
Pudge’s home a tangle of lovely flowers, rich in smears 
of gaudy color, and the long waves of canterbury bells 
bowed to him in many tints as he paused at the white 
gate. Pudge, himself, ran down the paved garden 
path, a small turtle in one hand, a little willow whistle 
in the other. Both of these were proudly exhibited to 
his friend; also, mysterious news, the guinea pigs had 
now several little guinea pigs of their own and the 
doings of these piebald sacks of fur and ears were 
rehearsed. Watts listened with interest. 

“ Mother’s up in the garret,” said Pudge. “ She’s 
looking at letters—they make her cry.” 

Watts frowned. “ They do, do they?” 

“ Yes, some more,” the little fellow heaved a great 
sigh and took hold of Watts’ trouser leg. “ I’m glad 
you’ve come; when you come Mother doesn’t cry as 
much; sometimes she looks in the glass and smiles.” 

“ H’m,” said the lawyer. “ I say, Pudge, do you 
ever look in the glass ? ” 

Pudge nodded. “ When I’m playing Jack the Giant 

*33 


234 


UNDER THE LAW 


Killer, first I’m Jack and then I look in the glass; and 
then I’m the two-headed giant and then I look in the 
glass and try to see two heads on me.” 

Watts was interested. “ A great game,” he agreed. 
“ Now suppose you shin up my leg as far as my vest 
pocket and see what’s in it.” 

Pudge immediately essayed the shin, his little fat 
form clinging and groping. The vest pocket and its 
candy trove having been achieved, his friend put him 
on a shoulder and galloped around the garden with 
him. 

“ I’m sailing,” crowed Pudge with delight, “ I’m 
flying through the air, I’m a pigeon.” The little 
hands ran into Watts’ neck. “ I like fathers,” said 
Pudge with satisfaction. 

“ What! ” gasped the lawyer. They paused by the 
water barrel and Watts, looking in the smooth sur¬ 
face, saw himself with the little face looking over his 
head. 

“ I like fathers,” repeated Pudge; “ they come and 
play with you like this. Greddy Martin’s father, he 
comes and plays with him like this.” 

“ But, old scout, I’m not your father.” Watts 
looked at himself in the rain barrel, and a thought 
came to him. Guiltily he peered to see if it was in 
his face. 

“ Oh, my father’s dead,” said little Pudge, prac¬ 
tically. “ But you are something like Greddy’s father, 
and so I don’t care.” 

The rain barrel image wavered a little; the lawyer 
chuckled slightly. “ Huh! ” he growled, “ I’m not a 


OLD LETTERS 


235 


father, I am a camel. I’m carrying you on my back 
across the Algerian desert. Do you know what that is, 
Pudge ?” 

“ Yes,” said Pudge, “ we have it for dinner.” 

“ Well,” smiled the “ Camel,” “ I’ve .carried you all 
across the Algerian desert and this rain barrel is an 
oasis where you stop and pick a date off this little 
peach tree.” The two gravely picked imaginary dates 
and drank out of the spring. “ But you must be 
careful when I drink out of the spring not to fall off 
my back into the rain barrel.” The camel pretended 
to drink from the oasis rain barrel with dramatic ef¬ 
fects of allowing the small rider to fall into it, and 
only by a miracle as it seemed did Pudge escape that 
awful fate. 

The little boy, his eyes shining, looked into his 
friend’s face. “Oh! we’re having fun,” he cried, 
“ fun like other boys with their fathers. I wish you’d 
come every day! I like you.” 

“ Supposing,” said Watts, “ I was to pitch my tent 
just outside your gate here, would Mother let me 
stay ? ” 

Pudge deliberated. “ She might, perhaps. I could 
ask her,” and hopefully, “ Maybe she wouldn’t say 
no; maybe she would say, ‘ We’ll see.’ ” 

Watts smiled to himself. “How about food; my 
black horse and Friar Tuck, my big dog, would you 
bring us things to eat every morning ? ” 

Now Pudge was slightly taken back. “ You could 
have half my breakfast,” he promised as man to man, 
“ and one graham cracker,” but the thing grew to 


236 


UNDER THE LAW 


present difficulties to Pudge; “ and one baked apple 
on Sundays,” he faltered slowly. 

“ Nothing more?” The man standing there 
squeezed the fat legs hungrily. “ Why,” said Watts, 
“ you’d surely let me have a little milk ”; this camel 
was becoming a responsibility. 

Now the desert rider hedged a little. “ Well, you 
see,” urged Pudge, “ Mother wants me to drink all 
my milk; you see,” he explained, “ the more good 
milk I drink the more good boy I am.” 

“ Sure.” Watts slid him down to terra firma. 
“ Well, I guess we can fix it up some way. Now 
about this mother of yours; let’s stand down here and 
call up all sorts of nice names to her and see which 
one she’ll answer, which one will make her come down 
to us.” 

Together they stood, the tall man with the dark 
dappled hair and the little shaver in blue linen, shout¬ 
ing such names as occurred to them up to the little 
garret window. 

“ Lady of Shalot,” called Watts; he cast an eye 
about the sweet summer garden at a seat under a big 
horse-chestnut, “ Lady of Shalot, come down and 
speak to Pudge’s Camel.” 

“ Oh, Mrs. Pudge’s mother,” sang out the little fel¬ 
low, " come down and see my Watts Shipman.” 

“ Blessed Damosel,” Watts liked this game; his 
voice held something whimsically tender. 

“ Dearest Honey-bug,” this with a masculine swag¬ 
ger from Pudge. But there was silence; no one ap¬ 
peared at the little window. Could the lawyer have 


OLD LETTERS 


237 


known it Eleanor Ledyard had stopped reading the 
letters; an instinctive feminine hand went to her hair, 
then a curious look of restlessness came to her face; 
she did not, however, go at once to the window, though 
the calling voice of her little son drew her away from 
the trunk full of letters. 

“ That doesn’t bring her.” Watts' voice, purposely 
raised, held the note of injury. “ Why, I don’t believe 
she wants to see us,” the lawyer spoke distinctly. “ I 
think she knows I’ve come around with my tiresome 
questions. I say, Pudge, you know some people don’t 
care for me the way you do.” 

“ But Mother does,” came the little voice eagerly. 
“ She has your picture and she tells me long stories 

about-” A hand must have gone over Pudge’s 

mouth. Up-stairs listening, Eleanor Ledyard felt the 
slow color burn in her face. 

“ Darling,” she whispered softly—“ you mustn’t.” 
Pudge's mother quailed. 

Watts, holding the little fat hand, squeezed it; he 
looked up at the window steadily and something 
mounted in his throat. He felt the desolate sense of 
that trunk full of letters, of the woman patiently try¬ 
ing to read and destroy and—forget. “ Our names 
don’t seem to mean anything to that mother of yours. 
Let's try others, let’s call her—well—just the dearest 
ones we know.” 

“ I have,” said Pudge stoutly. “ Mrs. Honey-bug 
is my dearest; I haven’t any more dear names.” 

“ Well, I have,” said the lawyer decidedly. “ I 
haven’t used up mine, not all the dearest ones I could 



I 


238 UNDER THE LAW 

think of, only if I called up some,” Watts was eyeing 
the window, “ your mother might scold me.” 

Pudge looked serious, then he clasped anew the 
hand that held his. 

“ I don’t believe she would,” encouragingly; “ you 
try it.” 

As they stood thus hand in hand, Watts, knowing 
that every word was heard, essayed his mischievous 
worst. 

“ Dear Know-not-thine-own-heart,” he called, 
“ Lady of Denial ”—“ Heart’s Sorrow.” 

Her head, shining with its coils of brown hair, ap¬ 
peared at the little oriel opening. Eleanor Ledyard 
smiled down her reproof. “ Watts, how am I to 
keep at this thing which you know I must do if you 
two don’t go away and amuse yourselves quietly; have 
I two children instead of one ? ” 

“ I wish you had-” murmured the man. He 

let something come into his eyes that Eleanor had 
often seen there; the deep blue eyes with the black 
lashes tried to meet this with womanly severity. Some¬ 
how this morning the look failed. Watts Shipman had 
come far to see a fair woman, and a spark of the 
tradition of the cavaliers and men of romance was in 
his blood. A lady at an oriel window was a person 
who must ultimately do one thing. Come down! The 
lawyer, his head bared, looked belligerently back, and 
something in his gaze had made Eleanor turn from 
the window quickly. 

“ I guess my mother is coming down,” said little 
Pudge. 



OLD LETTERS 239 

“ She’d better,” said Watts grimly, “ or I’d have 
had to go and get her.” 

“ But you couldn’t,” said Pudge earnestly, “ not if 
she didn’t want you to.” Watts turned and looked 
at the small, earnest face. 

“ Dear lamb, I know that,” groaned the man. “ I 
know that; don’t rub it in.” 

He called up to the empty window. " I say, Elea¬ 
nor, please bring that letter stuff down and read it 
here; if you’ve got to do the deadly thing, let me 
help! ” 

So the morning ended by her coming down, and 
they sat very contentedly with Pudge making paper 
dolls out of the envelopes his mother gave him. 
Eleanor, with a sort of desperate haste, tore packet 
after packet of letters. All those relating to her hus¬ 
band’s early life she had said she would set aside, 
“ something for Pudge to have.” Others she tore up 
so vehemently, into such small pieces, that the lawyer, 
a mere man, wondered, and little Pudge, carrying bas¬ 
kets of fragments to the trash-box, thought how much 
Hop-o’-My-Thumb would have liked these paper frag¬ 
ments for his trail back to his mother. That the 
fragments were in reality part of the trail of a weak 
man, father to her sturdy little boy, made a drift like 
falling snow in Eleanor’s heart. One letter she had 
saved to show to Watts, and as the lawyer read it his 
eyebrows went up. 

When at last Shipman put down the closely written 
sheets he bent his deep gaze on her. 

“ Well, that does look as if-” he turned ques- 



240 


UNDER THE LAW 


tioningly. “ You surely don’t believe Ledyard is 
alive,” incredulously, “ Martin Ledyard, the great 
scientific adventurer, alive and the world not know 
it! ” 

Eleanor nodded. “ I’ve always believed it.” Her 
eyes wandered to the bloomy-purple of the line of 
mountains back of them. “ Of course, I never could 
understand why, if he was anywhere in the world, 
why, when that happened he didn’t come to us, to 
George and me. And after George went, I won¬ 
dered more but I've always felt him alive, in the world, 
somewhere.” 

Watts was thoughtful. “ He might have been 
afraid; he might have thought it would hurt him 
some way, do you think that ? ” 

“ No,” the woman lifted her head decidedly. 
“ That’s not a Ledyard trait. Martin was as devoted 

to George as I—almost-” She shivered a little on 

the word and the lawyer sadly watching her realized 
that that word “ almost ” regulated the great gulf be¬ 
tween the deep faith of a man’s loving, and the shat¬ 
tering blasts of a woman’s power of sorrow. Eleanor 
was silent a moment; then she said dreamily, “ They 
adored each other at college, camping, on expeditions, 
everywhere. Martin might have been crushed by 
George’s trouble, saddened beyond words, but he 
wouldn’t have deserted; he would have come to us if 
he could have! ” 

“ But,” the lawyer turned to the letter in his hand, 
“ this chap says that nearly all of the men in that 
West African expedition died of smallpox. I re- 



OLD LETTERS 


241 


member that year; it was fearful along the Niger; 
there was a lot of red tape and the Entente govern¬ 
ments fought over whose job it was to stamp the thing 
out. It swept the Congo, I know. They all died, this 
chap Morrow says.” 

Eleanor Ledyard assented. “ Nearly all, but they 
never accounted for all. Tarrant, the man Martin 
loved so, went first; and after that McCall, their sur¬ 
geon; very bravely, I believe. Then the Southerner 
who partly financed the thing, did you read that aw¬ 
ful part where they had to send them down the Niger 
in the canoes made of hollowed out trees? Well, they 
and the natives say that six canoes came down and 
that they burned all the smallpox victims in quick¬ 
lime. But, you see, there was one letter from Mar¬ 
tin himself, very distressed, out of West Africa, at 
Monrovia, I think, as he waited to embark for En¬ 
gland, and he says—this letter, dated long after, 
sounds pretty nearly out of his head—‘ they are all 
gone but me, and I was taken from the same canoe 
as Tarrant. I was trying to paddle him down to a 
village for burial; he had been dead four days when 
we got there, a putrid corpse! Tarrant, my friend, 
my beloved brother-in-science.’ ” 

For a long time there was silence. The man and 
woman sat staring at the blue Ramapo as the strange 
scenes of the stricken men in the tropical river drifted 
through their minds. At last Eleanor spoke: “ And 
then came ‘George’s Trial.’” Watts saw the terrible 
effort it was to her to say the words, how she glanced 
at Pudge at her feet, and then, “ George went 


242 UNDER THE LAW 

and Martin never came to me. Nobody came to 
** 

me. 

Watts sat there, the letter in his hand. “ I came to 
you/' he said simply. She flashed him a look of pas¬ 
sionate gratitude. 

“ As Christ might have,” she said with equal sim¬ 
plicity. 

The lawyer, half irritably, turned away. “ I wish 
you’d drop that Christ idea,” he muttered. “ I’m a 
man, I’m not a god. I am a man, and I want a dear 
woman who doesn’t want me.” 

She looked at him; her hands went out, her eyes 
soft, pleading. “ Watts, dear, I am always ready to 
come from gratitude; indeed, dear friend, I would 
come trustingly ... in memory of what you 
did.” 

“ No,” he said firmly, “ I want love, I don’t want 
your trust and gratitude, not even your dear hands 
and lips.” His soul leaped into his eyes, and he faced 
her implacably. “ I want the thing I don’t believe 
George got, but which you won’t let me have. I 
want you. Your whole being, you , Eleanor.” 

She sat there like a person stunned. The thing 
that he had said went to some hidden place in her and 
pulled aside a temple curtain; for a moment her eyes 
flashed, outrage stiffened her form; then with a dig¬ 
nity the man could not fathom, the woman who had 
been a wife looked at him. 

“ I think,” she said gently, “ that you could not 
have meant to say that, that you have forgotten your¬ 
self.” 


OLD LETTERS 


243 


It was the veiled woman of ice. Watts knew her 
well. The man got up, paced back and forth, his 
passionate heart pounding. Then he stood before her. 
“ I’m sorry,” he said, “ order me out of here if you 
want to; I know I’m a cad.” Watts, the self-con¬ 
trolled man of the world, felt his lips tremble. " Or¬ 
der me out,” he blurted clumsily. “ I’m—I’m-” 

But she looked up, smiling gravely, and took his 
hand. “ Sit down, Watts dear, don’t be impatient and 
try,” her dark blue eyes filled with tears, “ try to un¬ 
derstand.” 

“ I do,” said the man miserably, “ I do understand. 
“ I’m a hound, Eleanor.” 

With a sigh the lawyer turned back to the letter. 
“ There ought to be a search for Martin,” he said 
thoughtfully. “What clues have you? Did he wear 
any one ring or anything; was there any peculiarity 
about him, scars or blemishes? Have you a photo 
of him? ” 

Eleanor could remember a very slight defect, a front 
tooth slightly broken. “ He had fine teeth,” she said, 
“ and that break was teasingly noticeable.” George 
Ledyard's widow took from the chain about her neck 
a rather large old-fashioned locket which she drew up 
from beneath her lace collar and silently she handed 
the thing to him. Its slight warmth came to the man’s 
fingers in a way that made him glance suddenly at 
her, wondering at the calm, unconscious face. Keep¬ 
ing his thoughts down as best he might, Shipman 
opened the side opposite from the reckless face of 
George Ledyard, that face he had seen go through, at 



244 


UNDER THE LAW 


the trial, every swift change of the reckless specula¬ 
tor and desperate trapped man; he glanced for an in¬ 
stant upon the lips that Ledyard’s own wife had said, 
" Lured one until one was wrecked upon them.” 
“ With such a face,” thought Watts bitterly, “ a man 
can beckon a woman down to hell or up to heaven.” 
Watts dared not look again at the wife drooping there, 
her little boy’s head against her knee. He turned to 
the other side of the locket. Something, as he looked, 
rose like a finger post in his heart; it pointed to a set 
of conditions, a tangled net of human things he had 
recently known; but the lawyer did not instantly rec¬ 
ognize it, only slowly came the gradual shaping of 
curious mists, and these settled in his mind like fog 
settling around the tops of houses. 

The other face was younger than George’s, finer 
and firmer, singularly a tempered man’s face, free 
from recklessness, but with the look of adventure and 
an illumined look of pure kindness and intelligence, 
very unusual in a face so dominant and assured. The 
eyes, a little wide apart, were set under brows of reso¬ 
lution; the build of chin and cheek were of a spare 
sobriety; the lips, mobile and gracious, were a scholar’s 
lips. 

“Do you suppose he’s gray now, if he’s alive? 
Same hair as George’s? No?” 

Eleanor shook her head. “ I don’t believe hair like 
that can change, the curious red chestnut; we used 
to think that the birds and animals he tamed so easily 
came to him because he had that crest, a fine glitter¬ 
ing plumage like their own.” 


OLD LETTERS 


245 


“ He must have seen strange birds in West Africa/' 
Watts said dreamily, “ strange men and things." 
The lawyer looked at her. “ He might have gone 
crazy," he said suddenly. “ He may be shut up 
somewhere; have you thought of that? The man’s 
rotten cowardly, else why should he have left you to 
face this alone ? ’’ 

Her eyes, deep and misty, looked at him. “ He 
loved George," she said quietly; “ he would have come 
if he could have; he loved George. Even you," she 
looked at him a little childishly, “ never did that." 

Watts smiled at the feminine pettishness. 

“ No," he said gravely, “ I just loved George’s wife, 
and I do still, God help me! ’’ 

She half rose; but his look held her. “ I hoped 
not," she said almost defiantly. “ I hoped that that 
girl might have-” 

Watts, however, steadily met her glance. “ Sard 

Bogart," he said, “ is, well, she’s-" he broke off, 

looking earnestly at his friend. “ That girl is going 
to need friends," said the lawyer decidedly. He 
handed the locket back to Eleanor, and with a curi¬ 
ous look, half awe, half ache, saw it slip into its 
place. He stopped, something trivial on his lips. He 
was glad at Eleanor’s next remark. 

“ I wish I might help her." Her voice was calm, 
sympathetic. 

The lawyer was a little dubious, a little uncertain. 
“ I don’t know; I’ve told her about you," he hesi¬ 
tated. Eleanor half shrank and Watts added coolly, 
“ That you are my dearest friend." He stood up 




246 


UNDER THE LAW 


thoughtfully. “ Unless you are going to ask me to 
lunch, I must go. Are you going to ask me to lunch ? ” 
he asked her. 

The old drama began instantly between them. The 
masterful, pursuing man and the retreating, doubting 
woman. The thing itself took hold of them, but reso¬ 
lutely, like people tempered to the grave concerns of 
life, they put it aside. 

Eleanor shook her head. “ I am not going to ask 
you,” she said gently. 

“ Punishment, I suppose,” murmured Watts. 

There was a moment’s silence. She also rose and 
he thought that in her white gown with the rows of 
blue larkspur and the canterbury bells as background 
she was a wondrous fair thing that had almost too 
much power over him. The man’s mind flew to the 
bright impulse of the girl they spoke of. Eleanor saw 
this and her hand went out to his. “ Bring Sard to 
see me,” she said it very kindly, “ and that funny little 
Cousin Minga. I used to see a good deal of the ‘ Mede 
and the Persian ’; they are dears.” She looked at 
him, casting about for something that should give him 
comfort. “ Next week you take up the O’Brien case, 
don’t you? Tell me, has the boy any chance? Can 
you save him? Is it to be for life? ” 

Watts turned; he looked long and silently at the 
sun descending, at all the colors and life of the flowers 
about them, at the mountains standing like great blocks 
of sapphire beyond the green fields awash with daisies. 
Suddenly, he pointed to a little cedar tree reaching its 
infant head close by their side. 


OLD LETTERS 247 

“ How long do you think that little thing has been 
there ? ” 

Mrs. Ledyard thought about two years. M It's so 
cunning; it's planted itself. I haven't had the heart to 
have it taken out.” 

“ When it is a big tree,” said Shipman slowly, “ and 
when his bones are brittle and when only images of 
sin and failure and disease are graven on his soul, 
Terence O’Brien will be called ‘ free/ ” 

“ Free,” she murmured; her eyes, fixed on her 
friend’s, read anew that greatest and deepest thing in 
him, the passion for humanity. 

She saw him fighting for a boy as she had seen him 
fight for her own husband; saw his stern face and 
iron gray head raised in its superb appeal to the pity 
and understanding of the so-called " good ” who con¬ 
trol the so-called “ bad.” Something surged up in the 
woman, a deep something that was a triumph and a 
shame. “ I could make this man happy,” her soul 
said. " I could make him happy! ” Then into the 
strange quietude of a wife’s memory, she withdrew 
even as she gave him her hand and eyes. She was a 
cold statue, a gracious being, a woman who had 
known. 

Pudge ran up. “ Mother,” the little blue figure 
shouted, “ I’ve caught a butterfly. He wiggles his 
wings; he doesn’t like it; he wants to get away.” 

The man and woman smiled. They showed Pudge 
the meaning of wings, the reason things want to get 
away and in showing, they were tender of each other. 
When the little orange and black fans again wavered 


248 


UNDER THE LAW 


against the great wall, the blue vast of the morning 
sky, Pudge himself got the sense of your true libera¬ 
tor! 

“ My, I like to let him go! ” he breathed. He gazed 
a little wistfully after his silken-fanned treasure, in¬ 
sisting stoutly, “ I like to let him go! ” Pudge looked 
earnestly up into the two faces, smiling at him. “ I 
want everything to go free,” said Pudge, “ except 
guinea pigs! ” 

Watts waited a moment; then he took Eleanor’s 
hand in both of his. He waited until she lifted her 
eyes to him. “ I shall not come again,” he said very 
gently, “ until—you send for me.” 

She was silent. “If I am ever to come,” said the 
man, “ send me only the message that you need me.” 

He turned and was gone. 


CHAPTER XX 


EXPLOSIVE DUST 

Every place has its own peculiar odor, from the 
flower and candle-smoke scent of a graceful woman's 
sitting-room to the tarry ropes and fish-net and canvas 
sails of a boat-house; from the dried earth, rustling 
bulb and flower-seed smell of a tool bin to the paint 
tubes and mustiness of old draperies and cigarette 
smoke of an atelier. Sunning mattresses, hot milk 
bottles, warming squares and talcum powders, the 
delicious smell of bathed baby flesh; scent of wooden 
pews and velvet cushions, camphored furs and stale 
incense of a church: every department of life, every 
living thing, has its haunting, significant odor. 

A country court-room smells of unaired dust, of wet 
umbrellas and muddy rubbers, of onlookers who have 
handled horses and gasoline, of doctors who have 
come from operations. Smells of the coarse perfumes 
of the criminal’s lady friends, the bay rum of the 
shining country lawyer, lemon peel and cloves chewed 
by such persons as even in the most stringent times 
of the Volstead Act appear always to have something 
to conceal. 

When the man-of-straw of outraged community 
virtue is dislodged the court-room is redolent of preju¬ 
dice and policy and pedantry and plausibility; of 

249 


250 


UNDER THE LAW 


many things that lie on each other in layers like morn¬ 
ing griddle cakes. But it seldom suggests atmosphere 
of health and light and true cleanliness and earnest 
religious progressiveness; of the earnest desire to ad¬ 
minister true justice, of the earnest wish to 
analyze specific examples of crime, to conserve all 
goodness, to see straighter, more freely, with greater 
charity and more modern scientific accuracy. Of 
these things few court-rooms smell. 

It may have been the stale, dreary, intrenched and 
pompous atmosphere of the Trout County court¬ 
room that finally drove the Minga Bunch from their 
original intention of following Terence O’Brien to the 
last ditch of his trial. Youthful enthusiasm and curi¬ 
osity had long since died out, leaving only a grudging 
sense of clan obligation, and the long hours of re¬ 
viewing circumstantial evidence, the cross-questioning 
of this and that dull witness, the peering faces of the 
family of the murdered man and the grim and relent¬ 
less attitude of the jury, these things had somehow 
robbed the circumstances of all their dramatic values. 
The sight of Terry standing day after day in the pen, 
his tow-colored hair always brushed the same way, his 
eyes always nervously blinking the same way, and his 
dry mouth unable to testify in his own defense, net¬ 
tled the group of young people who had interested 
themselves in his behalf. They had supposed the 
young accused would rise suddenly and pelt the peo¬ 
ple with polemics. They had looked for dynamics; 
they found only musty, fusty technique, sour looks of 
old men, rigidities of convention and a bewildered 


EXPLOSIVE DUST • 251 

effect of vital issues lost in a grand tea-party of form 
and precedent. 

Also, Watts Shipman disappointed them. Not ex¬ 
perienced enough to comprehend the poise and power 
that lay behind Shipman’s calm, his deferential giving 
way to his “ distinguished opponent,” his punctilious 
observance of every known courtesy and tradition of 
the bar, they found him tepid and unconvincing. They 
saw their great man as rather a simple soul, appar¬ 
ently a negligible factor in the trial, apparently domi¬ 
nated by the sleek, shining country counsel for the 
prosecution, and did not know that those very sim¬ 
plicities were the earnest of his greatness. The Bunch 
did not know the modern function of the lawyer to 
hold himself rigidly from emphasis until all of the 
case has been digested. To work out by the slow 
sifting of evidence the four sides of his construction, 
the meticulous dotting of I’s and crossing of T’s, the 
subterfuge of the trained, technical response of wit¬ 
ness when asked certain specific questions; in short, 
the suave chicanery and subtle craft that has been 
slowly built up around the narrowing arena where 
two brains tourney for the life or honor of a prisoner 
—these things were so much mortification of the flesh 
for the restive “ Bunch.” 

One by one the slow summer mornings of the trial 
dragged out. One by one the “ Bunch ” dwindled 
down. Dora, trim in costume, desperate in eyes and 
manner, might have noticed this defection; Sard, 
rather listless and weary, saw it with scorn; Shipman, 
a slight glimmer in his eyes, observed it. But Minga 


252 


UNDER THE LAW 


and Dunstan, coming religiously together every day, 
both noted and registered it. 

These two young people sat solemnly aloof in some 
communion of spirit, waiting for some revelation, 
what, they hardly knew. But to an imaginative on¬ 
looker they might have seemed slowly in their young 
hope to dim; their vaulting belief might have ap¬ 
peared to such an onlooker to become slowly filmed 
over by the long, long dust and dinginess, the hanging 
cobwebs, the old parchments and papers, the pomps 
and vanities, the emptiness and scaly dead skin of the 
Law. 

But Dust is capable of explosion, and the two 
youngsters solemnly sitting there on the last day of 
the case gradually felt themselves slow fuses in some 
strange emotional bomb of their own planning. This 
was somewhat heightened by a note that Dunstan 
carried in his pocket. Once during the trial the lad 
took this out and showed it to his companion; the two 
heads bent over it, two brown hands clasped in solemn 
vow. Two solemn pairs of young eyes swore some 
consecration to a so far half-planned venture. 

Minga seemed restless and scornful. She kept her 
eyes on the proceedings with the air of one who should 
say, “ And this is what you call ‘ justice *! ” 

At last came the summing up for the defense, and 
the great lawyer rose and made his plea for the youth, 
who, sullen of eyes and unbelieving of spirit, sat 
there. The court-room was full. Watts’ fame had 
been passed from mouth to mouth among the Trout 
County inhabitants and all up and down the little 


EXPLOSIVE DUST 


253 


villages of the Hudson the lawyer's mission had been 
told. Private automobiles bumped along the country 
roads, jitneys from the ferries and from other coun¬ 
ties deposited their loads of citizens. The country 
people, secure in their sense of collective virtue, un¬ 
troubled with modern analyses of crime and punish¬ 
ment, unhampered with any passion for an adjustment 
of punishment to environment and education, and keen 
for the Roman Holiday, came to see severe sentence 
of imprisonment passed upon one who had forfeited 
his right to live among them. The jury, clean as to 
shave, ostentatious as to watch chain, some perfumed, 
some begoggled, one in hip boots, another in pearl 
spats, all with an expression of wisdom and virtue 
rather droll to anyone who knew the hidden chapters 
of their separate lives; in fact, the Spoon River 
Anthology, numbering twelve picked verses, filed into 
the jury box, and “ twelve good men and true" 
mopped their foreheads and tried to look unconscious. 

Outside, the summer morning was rich with prom¬ 
ise. Butterflies sailed two and two past the branches 
and down into the deep grass. The leaves, turning 
over like little green babies on their backs, warmed 
their little stomachs in the sun. 

The summing up was short. Terry, his half-formed 
young ears pricking up, heard it, only half under¬ 
standing. Sard, Dunstan and Minga heard it rebel- 
liously. Dora, like a person in a trance, heard it 
stonily. 

The criminal had done murder, so the evidence had 
shown, to obtain money for adventure and to further 


254 


UNDER THE LAW 


schemes for his advancement. No motive of personal 
hatred or self-defense or vengeance could be found. 
The testimony had been full, accurate and to the 
point. Terry’s curly, well-brushed head was on his 
chest. Later it was raised and the boy was staring 
defiantly around him like a young bull at bay and 
desperately knowing only one thing, how joyous, how 
magnificent it would be to charge! 

Sard, sitting back in the court-room, looked from 
the boy, all the muscles of his young back taut, to her 
father. It was to her suddenly as if the whole court¬ 
room, all of them were, under the Judge’s power of 
punishment, and that somehow his whole life, all the 
whetted flavor of his existence was to mete punish¬ 
ment. To the girl’s daunted eyes, her father was as 
powerful here as he was at the breakfast table. The 
gray head was pompous and rawly defined against 
the background of the American flag; the hard-boiled 
eyes looked with a peculiar fixity, a muscular invari¬ 
ability on every witness; the nasal voice with its few 
comments, swift interruption and rebuke, its lifeless 
adjustments and refereeship of the proceedings were 
of an inflexible quality that the girl felt was not of 
convention but of a hard, unimaginative, self-secure 
and characteristic conceit. 

So that when the counsel for the defense rose, three 
young hearts in the assemblage arose with him. Yet 
to their passionate wish, Watts seemed, standing in 
the court-room here, to fall short. The distinguished 
figure, the face tanned with a summer of outdoor 
work and horseback riding, sobered with long, lonely 


EXPLOSIVE DUST 


255 


vigils of thought, had, it seemed, great respect for 
this country court-room, for its judiciary, for the fore¬ 
man of the jury and for his opponent in the matter 
of the trial. Watts carried himself like a man who 
had been impressed by the firmness and sobriety of 
the proceedings. The lawyer let the court-room know 
that he had had many personal talks with the prisoner. 
It was his skilful way of assuring them that they 
shared his passion for reforms. 

Terry’s head lifted, looking at him curiously. The 
young fellow remembered revelations, tears, of one 
night in particular when Watts had stayed with him 
until dawn came and his hysteria was over. The boy 
wondered what his friend would reveal of this. But 
the great lawyer went calmly on with unemotional 
emphasis to state that he had found the criminal’s 
mind vague, perhaps not properly educated, unformed 
and in ignorance of the many physical facts that at 
his age induce crime. 

" And we know,” remarked the speaker calmly, 
“ that there is an age in young manhood when a youth 
is hardly responsible. The law, I feel, should in¬ 
variably in its adjustments reckon with the physio¬ 
logical fact of that age. He had,” he said, “ talked 
with the prisoner as he would have liked to be given 
the wisdom at crises to talk to a son of his own, and 
as ”—here the man looked about the court-room into 
the rows of dull and complacent faces—“ it seems to 
me it is absolutely incumbent on all of us to talk to 
sons and daughters of our own frankly, giving them 
truth and the clear analysis of all that makes in our 


256 


UNDER THE LAW 


bodies and environment and heritage for crime; for 
sins against ourselves and the body politic.” 

The lawyer then reviewed some mitigating circum¬ 
stances, touched lightly on some of the more inter¬ 
esting technical aspects of the case and addressed the 
jury on behalf of the commutation of the sentence. 
Finally, with curious simple tenderness, a thing that 
the court-room did not understand, at which Judge 
Bogart looked displeased and drummed impatiently 
with his fingers, at which the country lawyers openly 
squirmed and yawned, but at which Dora sat tense 
and straight, and Terry’s young head went down into 
his arms, he finished. 

“ If, Gentlemen of the Jury, you should still feel 
that you must bring in the verdict of intentional and 
deliberate guilt, then I appeal, your Honor, for the 
commutation of sentence. I appeal in the name of 
Humanity, of struggling, sinning, ignorant Humanity, 
and by that new spirit which makes us disbelieve now¬ 
adays in the ‘ pound of flesh.’ I appeal, your Honor, 
by my own youth’s ignorance, its mistakes and strug¬ 
gles and by the ignorances and mistakes and struggles 
of those I have tried to help; by yours, Gentlemen of 
the Jury, who take your solemn part in the decision 
after the trial. I appeal to Terence O’Brien, the ac¬ 
cused, to take your decision, whatever it may be, and 
apply it as a test of his own character and what he 
may still make of that character; and I appeal to his 
sister, sitting there, to make her grief and sorrow 
noble, a test by which she may grow stronger and 
braver. 


EXPLOSIVE DUST 


257 


“ I appeal,” said Watts, looking down toward his 
three young friends who sat with hot cheeks watching 
him, “ to all intelligence and sweetness and honesty 
of women, all strength and cleanness and courage of 
men to help Terence O’Brien and all such as he. I 
ask, your Honor, that his sentence may be mitigated, 
so that he may finally go back to a world acknowl¬ 
edged the better by his punishment, and be received 
by the world with respect and helpfulness. I ask 
these things,” said the lawyer in a low voice, “ as I 
know my own human soul and its potentialities, as I 
know yours, sir,” turning to the prosecutor, “ as I 
know yours, gentlemen,” turning to the somewhat con¬ 
fused jury, “ and as I know yours,” with a half smile 
at the unimaginative audience eyeing him. 

“ For we are all somewhere, sometime, through 
some guilt or ignorance or weakness and mistake, 
guilty of punishable things. That is why we must for¬ 
ever demand of our Law that it shall be administrated 
with hope, must forever inculcate and advocate the 
higher, healthier judgments of analysis, understand¬ 
ing, temperance and mercy. There is no glory in 
punishing predestined guilt; there is glory in shield¬ 
ing and protecting potential criminals from guilt.” 

The speech fell painfully flat, as Watts must have 
known it would. It left the court-room cold. These 
country people, trained to the less analytical, more 
emotional attitude toward crime and punishment, felt 
somehow defrauded. The great lawyer had robbed 
them of their Roman Holiday, of the raging and tear¬ 
ing oratory to which by his very greatness they felt 


258 


UNDER THE LAW 


they were entitled. There is an unconquerable love 
among the half-baked for flourishes and figures, for 
verbal fireworks and Mosaic utterances. No country 
audience feels that it has been fairly dealt with in a 
criminal trial unless it has been seized roughly by the 
orator and dragged willingly over the entire gamut of 
the prisoner’s shame, contrition, despair, rage, vindic¬ 
tiveness, and given a delicious peep at the unspeakable 
and the unprintable. 

The rest was technical. The judge dryly charged 
the jury, commending, coldly, a consideration for the 
youth of the prisoner. The jury filed out; the crowd 
filtered forth. 

Minga and Dunstan leaped from their seats and fled 
forth under the trees. Minga’s small face was pale. 
She stood staring unseeingly at the crowds straggling 
out of the little country court-house of Trout County. 

People were already settling down with lunch boxes 
or hurrying away to eat before the jury should re¬ 
turn. It was prophesied from mouth to mouth that 
the jury would not be “ out ” long. Groups standing 
about discussed the case with relish. The comments 
were bald, stereotyped and pharisaical. The tiresome, 
assumed impeccability of this crowd discussing one 
boy’s misdoings got on Minga’s nerves. Who were 
these people, some of them mean of face, too evidently 
underhand, tricky and foul-mouthed, to condemn a 
boy, only twenty, who had had them for example and 
no mature chance to estimate the essential stuff of 
life? 

The girl, with unreasoning resentment and little 


EXPLOSIVE DUST 


259 


understanding of the enormous values of the collec¬ 
tive sense of equity, watched Judge Bogart with slow 
pomp, making formal gestures of greeting and dis¬ 
missal. She saw the two lawyers exchanging dep¬ 
recating amenities, and wanted to laugh. What a 
play it all was! What mummery! 

She watched Sard talking to Shipman and her 
heart was hot with rage as the two exchanged what 
seemed to her inadequate remarks. 

“ How’s Winged Victory ? ” 

Sard’s hands went eagerly out. 

“ I’m still thinking of your speech. It’s what I’ve 
always wanted to say—to have said.” 

“You didn’t exact more pyrotechnics!” He met 
her glance quizzically. 

“ Ah,” the girl breathed, “ you spoke to their in¬ 
telligences, not to their emotions. You made people 
think! ” 

“ Did I ? ” Smiling doubtfully. 

“ Oh, it must do some good! ” she insisted. “ It 
must influence them some way or other, if not for 
Terry ”—the young, hopeful face clouded, “ then for 

someone else. Colter says-—” The girl hesitated 

then went on quickly, “ You made them use their 
minds, you showed the relation of society to crime; 
they saw that they were guilty of the Terrys of this 
world! ” 

Lovely in her enthusiasm she added, “ I was watch¬ 
ing. Old Mr. Fetherfew wiped his eyes and the ga¬ 
rage man coughed, and that young drug clerk looked 
so curious and interested. More young people looked 



260 


UNDER THE LAW 


interested than old ones,” said Sard rather acutely. 
“I think that some of them really understood what 
you meant.” 

“ You're too encouraging.” Watts, smiling, stood 
with one foot on the runner of her car. He was not¬ 
ing the traces of worry on the girl's face. His good 
news, that he believed the jury would bring in a 
modified verdict and Terry's sentence would not neces¬ 
sarily be for life, had not changed this look of worry. 
He had seen Sard hesitate and flush consciously after 
that arrested “ Colter says.” 

Shipman had had his mind upon this girl and her 
problem ever since the club dance. So Sard’s little 
world had already “ made her ashamed.” It had, with 
its tawdry assumption, already begun to pass judg¬ 
ment upon her. These were the things that sent young 
people running amuck. What chance was there in a 
community like this for the fine idealisms of youth? 
Shipman thought. How much more stringent and 
vindictive are the unwritten laws of so-called society 
against the bold spirit that seeks to transcend it than 
the concise preventive inhibitions of the state statute. 

Watts had heard rumors of the Tawny Troop ca¬ 
nard and of the general village interpretation of Col¬ 
ter’s presence in this girl’s vicinity. How common¬ 
place, how vulgar it was; how it could hurt her! 

The seasoned man winced at the thought of that 
pure spirit smirched with the stupid and bestial mouth- 
ings of the ordinary community. He shrank to think 
of his Winged Victory before the essential squalidness 
of the minds with which she was surrounded. But 


EXPLOSIVE DUST 


261 


he asked no questions, he only looked thoughtfully 
into the resolute fresh eyes, and there he seemed to 
read a page newly turned in Sard’s heart. 

This girl, he saw, was slowly growing conscious 
about the man, Colter. Jove, it was a pity! But with 
the buzzings of the country community and her fa¬ 
ther’s cold isolation from the problem there could be 
only one result: she would grow more and more sure 
of this one personality whose cause she had espoused. 
That was the way her kind met what it had to meet. 
Watts thought of what things Sard might have to 
meet. His dark eyes tried to read hers. " Courage! ” 
they said to her, and again, “ Courage! ” 

“ The Minga Group deserted, after all,” the lawyer 
teased. “ A little inharmony there, I’m afraid.” 
Then, as he saw two young figures morosely eating 
sandwiches under the shade of an elm, he went for¬ 
ward. 

“ Well, worshipful clients-” 

The lawyer was anxious to get Minga past all shy¬ 
ness and some painful memories. There was nothing 
in his face but the look of one who greets an old com¬ 
rade. 

“ How am I to spend my ill-gotten gains ? ” The 
man asked it with purposeful lightness. “ There’s 
about three hundred dollars that you contributed; shall 
we give it to Dora ? ” 

The two faces darkened. Minga threw away her 
sandwich. She turned and faced him, impudently 
looking him up and down. Her dark blue eyes glit¬ 
tered with a cold dislike that almost startled the man. 



262 


UNDER TEE LAW 


He regarded her with puzzled concern, amazed at the 
variability of this little creature whom he had already 
seen under so many different phases of emotion. 
Now, Watts thought, Minga looked really dangerous; 
something was added to her usual rebelliousness. 

“ Oh,” said the girl flippantly, “ let’s do something 
for Dora by all means, buy her a grand piano.” 

He did not answer. She went on bitterly: “ That 
will make you more comfortable anyway.” 

“ I’ve disappointed you ? ” the man questioned 
gently. Then trying again for lightness, " I was not 
worthy of my hire.” 

“ Ah,” with quick dislike, “ disappointed us ? 
You’ve been treacherous to us.” 

He was quiet, waiting to hear what she had further 
to say. 

“ With your power,” contemptuously, “ with your 
prestige, to just talk, to sermonize and philosophize 
and make no appeal for him, for Terry. Oh,” said 
the girl excitedly, “ it was like going past a drowning 
person in a boat, telling all the while how to make 
the boat safer for all the safe people, letting the per¬ 
son drown-” She caught her breath with a sob. 

Sard and Dunstan looked wonderingly on this sud¬ 
den eloquence. It was not Minga’s way to vibrate to 
the sorrow of the under-dog. Only Watts' shrewd 
brain guessed at the emotions that underlay the girl’s 
present scorn. The trained eyes perceived what was 
the dynamo that augmented this passion. With some¬ 
thing very tender in the gesture he tried to take 
Minga’s hand but she swerved from him. 



EXPLOSIVE DUST 


263 


She did not, however, abandon the discussion, and 
Dunstan, his face masked and suspicious, stood back 
of her. The youth scowled as Shipman asked slowly, 
“If you had what you call my power, just what would 
you do? Open all the prisons and turn out all the 
criminals? Use it to protect one poor lad or to pro¬ 
tect many lads and old men and women and children ? 
Do you know that Terry’s mind is psychologically the 
kind of mind that naturally resorts to violence to get 
what it wants ? ” 

“ But you have never believed that Terry would be 
pardoned or you might have gotten pardon, or a fine, 
or something,” vaguely. “ That was what we wanted. 
You never really tried! ” the girl passionately insisted. 
“ Nothing that you have said this morning but ac¬ 
knowledged that you believed him guilty. You didn’t 
insist on his having another chance! ” 

The man standing there bareheaded, the lines strong 
on his kind face, his dark, white dappled head con¬ 
spicuous under the low hanging elm branches, looked 
wonderingly at her, seeing the tears cloud her eyes. 
He longed, as he had longed before, to meet this de¬ 
fiant little spirit with a passion of tenderness, yet an 
old discipline controlled him. With his sober grasp 
of life he sought to help her. 

“ You mean,” the lawyer said slowly, “ that I have 
never believed him guiltless! No, I haven’t; we all 
heard his guilt proved. You expected him to be freed 
because of his youth; you thought that possible. I 
never did. Child,” said the man, “ there is always 
punishment for wrong-doing; it is automatic. Whether 


264 


UNDER THE LAW 


it comes of the courts or of life, it comes! Don’t you 
realize that even a life-sentence might be merciful; a 
deterrent, to keep Terry from the worse crimes to 
which his inheritance and environment might lead 
him? Try to have patience! ” 

Shipman held out his hand; he tried to make her 
meet his eyes. He laid the power of his spirit on 
her. “ You want better, more intelligent human laws, 
more enlightened justice/’ he said gravely; “ so do I. 
But, do you know how best to get freedom and justice 

for all peoples-? By obeying such law as there 

is!” 

Watts smiled at them, shaking his head. “ Oh, I 
know it’s a slow way, a tedious way, a tame way, but 
unless we all want to stay forever ‘ under the law ’ 
with all the slavery and lack of progress that con¬ 
notes, we must be better disciplined, better educated 
and more intelligent people. We must stay ‘ under 
the law ’ until slowly and painfully and all together 
we shall come to a consciousness of more Christian 
and more intelligent laws to which we can all sub¬ 
scribe.” 

Minga drove her hands into her front pockets. 

“ I want justice,” said the girl, crisply. 

“ So do I,” was the lawyer’s prompt reply. “ I 
want it, but I seldom see it.” 

“ I want the justice that would give Terry another 
chance.” 

“ I want justice for the old cobbler whom Terry 
killed.” 



EXPLOSIVE DUST 2G5 

He considered her. “ There’s only just one way to 
keep the Terrys of the world out of jail.” 

She faced him, held by his magnetism, yet unbe¬ 
lieving. Watts dominated her as he had that night 
on the mountain. “ Just by being better men and 
women ourselves. The criminal is the man or woman 
who analyzes and defies society, and in some cases his 
arraignment of society is just.” Then, with a voice 
that thrilled with conviction, Shipman said to them: 

“ Never lose your passion for justice, for the under¬ 
dog; never cease hating smug, secure, complacent 
things, and never relax in your efforts to be more 
intelligent men and women. I am willing to grant 
you that there can be no essential justice in life as 
long as there is no proper understanding of Terry’s 
temptations, his mental and bodily defects. To that 
extent we, as much as he, are to blame for his crime 
and we must never cease to agonize for him and for 
such as he. It is our duty to raise ourselves through 
education and our civilized dreams of justice to enact 
laws that shall protect all the Terrys from themselves, 
give them safety against their wayward impulses; 
understanding of the disease of their crime; until that 
time comes,” finished Watts, “ we are all under the 
law.” 

It was with a wistfulness the others could not un¬ 
derstand that the man said these things. Manfully, 
he tried to curb this young despair while he gloried 
in and respected it. Some day Watts knew they would 
forget this noble passion. They, like him, would grow 
old, mature in worldly wisdom, willing to throw much 


266 


UNDER THE LAW 


into the terrible human discard, where so much youth, 
beauty, hope and honor die in order that the artificial 
fabric, called society, may be statically preserved! 

Minga turned to Dunstan. “ Then Terry,” she said 
under her breath, “ has no friends but us.” The two 
looked at each other meaningly. They turned slowly 
toward their roadster. They sprang in; the long shape 
backed and snorted and left an angry trail of dust on 
the summer highway. 


CHAPTER XXI 


AUTHORITY 

It was late when the jury returned. The dusty end 
of day completed their dusty deliberations. They set¬ 
tled down in their seats mopping faces, adjusting 
waistcoats, casting plausible eyes to the ceiling or 
doubtful ones to the floor. The foreman, it was evi¬ 
dent, felt his brief authority. He was clearly sorry 
that the waiting crowd had perceptibly diminished. 
He stood, dyed of mustache, mottled of necktie, his 
hair brushed in the country barber's idea of integrity 
and truth. The rendering of the verdict was given 
with his laborious elegance of diction. 

And, suddenly, under even his smug sternness, the 
dimly lighted building became surcharged with fatal 
things! The old drama of youth and society, the old 
tragedy was as evident here as in any Greek theatre 
set in a hillside. Those who waited greedily for the 
sentence felt a certain awe as it was given. The 
Judge's machine-like voice had a cold inexorability, 
very impressive. It was like a clock ticking out the 
final words evenly: 

“ Twenty years at hard labor! " 

There was a general intake of breath. To some the 
sentence was disgracefully light; to others gratify- 
ingly merciful. There was a slow rumble of satisfied 

267 


268 


UNDER TEE LAW 


country virtue. They looked at the prisoner at the 
bar. Well, did Terry now know what the law was? 

Twenty years at hard labor! Something torturing 
made Sard’s heart careen like a badly ballasted boat. 
She got her first vision of the enigma of life. But 
with Terry’s sentence were they not all sentenced? 

Twenty years at hard labor! Watts working for 
human betterment, for clearer vision in legal things, 
yet still under the law. Twenty years at hard labor! 
Dora, working in the kitchen, always shadowed by 
her brother’s fate. Twenty years at hard labor! Col¬ 
ter patiently striving to piece together his lost puz¬ 
zled life. Twenty years at hard labor! All the pa¬ 
tient workers, thinkers, teachers and trail blazers of 
the great world! Was Terry in such poor company? 
Were they not all condemned, all held down, suffo¬ 
cated, frustrated, held back by the blind significance 
of crystallized laws? 

Sard stumbled over to the little group near Terry. 
Dora, now passionately crying, caught at her hand. 

“ Dora,” Sard’s voice weakened in her throat, 
“ Dora, don’t cry like that. It isn’t only you and 
Terry, don’t you see we are all—all under the law? ” 

And then the little country court-house became 
something very terrible to her; she stumbled blindly 
out of it. 

For Sard, poor child, knew that the chief issue, the 
chief point of all the struggle would be missed. How 
the trial of Terry O’Brien would be turned by the 
countryside merely into a compliment for itself! 
How it would be said that Watts Shipman, the great 


AUTHORITY 


269 


continental lawyer, had been so impressed by the 
splendid and inexorable quality of the Trout County 
Justice, that he had tried one of its most sensational 
cases himself! How the little country paper would 
gloat over the thing and fairly tumble over its type 
as it abandoned its usual clipped stories and boiler 
press jokes about the mother-in-law, the old maid, the 
unwelcome twins and the absent husband to flare into 
three sticks of local felicitations! Veritas, Uncle Fe¬ 
lix and E Pluribus Unum would write their usual let¬ 
ters. The Grand Old Man of the town would make 
a speech and everything he said would later be cor¬ 
rected and contradicted by the three Grand Old 
Women. 

The Roman Holiday furnished by Terry’s ruined 
life would obtain, but there would be no sober effort 
for the understanding and education of future 
Terrys. 

On the way home Sard and her father drove in 
silence. 

The country roads were leafy tunnels through 
which the lights of their automobile rayed mysteri¬ 
ously. Owls and bats whirred away from them, mists 
arose from the flats or filtered through the woods. 
The Judge held his portfolio of carefully fitted pa¬ 
pers. In the dusk Sard saw him heavy, immovable, 
his cigar in the corner of his mouth. Once or twice 
he turned to his daughter as if expecting her comment 
on the day’s events. But there was no talk between 
them and the Judge’s face grew harder. 

As they entered the drive he waved toward the 


270 


UNDER THE LAW 


garage. There gleamed no patch of orange-colored 
light in the window of the room above; the girl’s heart 
suddenly stood still. As she took her hands from the 
wheel they trembled. 

Again the Judge pointed to the garage. “ Leave the 
car here, don’t drive it around; a new man will wash 
the cars to-morrow. I dismissed Colter this morn- 
ing.” 

The Judge did not get down from the car, but sat 
there smoking and turning his cigar. His gray lips 
closing on it seemed to be the only thing the girl 
could look at; she could not look as far as his eyes 
and the Judge knew that her face became slowly and 
suffocatingly a scarlet consciousness. He gave a short 
grunt. 

“ Exactly; you’re not to see him again,” he said. 
Then, “ I all but kicked that fellow off the place.” 
As the wild tears rushed to the young eyes: “ It’s 
your own behavior, young lady. I’ve never limited 
you nor held you back,” the Judge said grimly. “ I 
thought you were a lady; I thought you lived under 
the right laws.” 

Under the laws-! 

Her father did not move from beside her in the 
seat and Sard dared not press by him out of the 
driver’s seat. She sat, her straight figure dilating, her 
hands clenched, the red stain on her face seeming to 
burn down into her body and to make another sort of 
woman of her—What sort? She could see what sort 
her father thought she was. The piteous eyes were 
dense with shame. 



AUTHORITY 


271 


At first she thought she could not, must not speak, 
then a man's kind eyes, understanding, compassion¬ 
ate, rallying, looked again into hers. “ Courage! " 
came Watts' voice. He must have known. The law¬ 
yer with his priest’s habit of the confessional of read¬ 
ing storm and stress back of faces must have read the 
new strange agony back of hers. 

To do honor to Shipman’s belief in her, she must 
meet this thing calmly and without disrespect or pas¬ 
sion. The girl swallowed once; with lifted face, 
turned on her father a look that might, had he noted 
it, made him wonder. For the uplifted features were 
swept clean of resentment. Sard was recognizing the 
parent’s claim on her, trying reasonably to meet it, but 
the Judge saw only one thing; his hard, old eyes told 
him he had made his decision just in time and that he 
must act quickly. 

“ You—you're letting yourself care for this man." 
The tones, though not loud, lashed on her; the Judge 
was deliberately making her ashamed. “ I should have 
thought as my daughter, even if not for yourself, 
you would have had more pride." 

Sard, slowly turning the watch on her wrist round 
and round, listened. There was only one thing to do, 
to try to meet the eyes, to meet the accusation with 
respect. But—but where was the respect due her, 
to her motives and actions? Had not this man, her 
own father, been willing to degrade her in her own 
estimation without hearing her, taking counsel with 
her? 

" Dad," she gave a little helpless shiver, “ I don't 


272 


UNDER THE LAW 


think you know; you don’t understand, or you 
couldn’t say such a thing—as—as that! ” 

But Bogart, taking out the cigar, smiled at it with 
a shrewd squint. Well, of course, he did know, and 
she, this untutored young thing, didn’t, that was all! 

Sard’s father knew what would be the plans of a 
ne'er-do-well who could make an ardent, indulged 
young person fall in love with him. “ Pah! ” The 
Judge’s gorge rose at it, also at what he called Sard’s 
“ deceit," it being the means of having him employ 
this man, rose up and condemned her. 

He saw her bowed head in the dusk, the girl’s cheek 
white on her blue scarf, and cleared his throat. “ It 
isn’t pleasant,’’ he admitted; then with a rasp, “ I 
never expected to speak to you like this any more than 
I should expect to thrash Dunstan, but," went on 
the Judge grimly, “ under some circumstances I 
should take pleasure in doing that very thing. Now 
stop all this nonsense," he assumed that Sard was 
crying. “ I’ve had a hard morning," the Judge always 
saw himself as unnerved by his court-room experi¬ 
ences, “ but I’m going to be obeyed." 

His hand went out; it clenched on the girl’s arm; it 
was not hurtful, only hard, arresting and cold. 
“ You’re to have self-control," said the Judge sharply, 
“ and you’re to obey me! Understand ? ’’ 

But she turned a set and stern face on him. That 
soft echo of Shipman’s “ Courage! ’’ had sent the 
flame of all her ancestors in her. “ You are not fair," 
she stammered. “ I am ready to—to ’’—Sard quiv¬ 
ered over the hard word, “ obey, but I can’t be cut off. 


AUTHORITY 


273 


dried up, stopped in all that I really care about/' She 
stiffened suddenly, flaring on him with hot mouth. 
“ Oh, you can’t be my father, not in spirit, or you 
wouldn’t stand off and judge me, condemn me, like 
this; you’d help me, you’d be,” the tortured girl 
caught her breath, “ a friend; you wouldn’t be will¬ 
ing to-” 

For answer the Judge rose. He cast an eye to the 
sky and took out his watch. “ You have an aunt,” he 
said sententiously, “ a woman, and a lady, to talk 
things over with.” He saw the curling lip of rebellion, 
adding, “ Of course, if you have no use for the so¬ 
ciety of ladies and social equals, if you care only 
for gutter snipes and wharf rats, that’s your own 
loss. My business,” said the Judge, getting heavily 
down from the car, “ my business is to see that you 
remember you’re my daughter, even if I have to use 
pretty severe means to make you. . . . My 

daughter, flirting with a tramp, making herself the 
comment of the town and the clubs, is a thing I will 
not allow! ” said the magistrate. “ That is a little too 
low! ” 

The cheap word “ flirting,” its hopeless connota¬ 
tion, the inhuman density and commonplace accept¬ 
ance of the whole matter, seemed to goad Sard into a 
frenzy. 

“ Ah, I’m not your daughter,” burst out the girl 
wildly. “ I’m not the daughter of coarse, narrow, 
cruel, smug things.” 

With the familiar eyes slowly turning on her, with 
their awful arraignment of her as something vulgar, 



274 


UNDER THE LAW 


unworthy, she quivered like a frightened animal. “ I 
don’t feel like you—I couldn't! Such disgusting 
thoughts couldn’t stay in my mind—I couldn’t be so 
—so common as you.” 

It was out now, her condemnation of him. They 
were pitted against each other, and Sard with a femi¬ 
nine prophetic pang knew to what extent. The only 
way to influence the Judge would have been her moth¬ 
er’s way, the little helpless scented timid lady’s way, 
and the girl knew miserably that hers could never be 
that way. Yet here she was fighting, not only for her 
integrity as a dignified woman, but for—for someone 
who until now, but for her, had been helpless, dazed, 
a fine sensitive being shut out of all human contacts 
by his ignorance of what contacts were normally his. 

The man turned and faced his daughter; something 
remorseless came into his eyes. His mouth gripped 
the cigar. “ Either,” said the Judge slowly, “ either 
you are my daughter and do as I say, or you don’t 
do as I say—and go-” he muttered doggedly, add¬ 

ing, “ I don’t care where! ” 

Then, his eyes professionally piercing, he remarked 
coolly, over his cigar, “ There, that’ll do, you've 
worked yourself up enough, you don’t need to be 
theatrical! Your duty,” said the Judge pompously, 
“ is to drop all this poppy-cock about unfortunates, 
the under-dogs and gutter snipes, whom you affect. 
Be natural, be normal,” said the Judge largely. 
“ Go around with your kind and your own age, 
though, as far as I can see, they’re as addle-pated as 
yourself. Drop all this nonsense, I say, and don't see 



AUTHORITY 


275 


Colter again —do you hear?” For the girl, now that 
he was out of the car, could turn her face from him. 

The Judge slowly fulminated, gradually bulged 
with authority. He seemed solemn even to himself 
as he laid down his final command. He took the 
cigar from his mouth. “ Don’t see Colter again! ” 
His eyes, reading his daughter’s, he was looking merci¬ 
lessly on her young agony, making it naked and flay¬ 
ing it, saw the writhings of her as she took the lash. 

Sard made a slow desperate gesture; she had 
winced, half shrunk from him, but she seemed re¬ 
solved now to meet the thing in its entirety. 

“ I’m sorry,” said the girl in a low voice, “ I can’t 
promise that. Last week, perhaps, but ”—with a 
strange little sigh of inevitability, “ not now, Dad. 
I’m sorry,” Sard looked sadly into his face, “ I can’t 
promise.” 

The Judge was stupefied. “Can’t promise?” he 
queried. “ Can’t promise ? But I gave you my orders! 
Do you realize what you’re saying ? ” 

“ Courage! ” Shipman’s low voice, pleading for 
human understanding, came to her. And another 
voice, the calm, thoughtful voice of Colter. She saw 
and recognized instantly her kinship with this soul 
that had come to her so strangely; she knew that she 
read it right and that no matter what its oblivion and 
dismay, it had come to her, belonged to her. Yet with 
all youth’s insecurity and doubt she realized, too, that 
she could hardly trust herself. Her eyes widened, 
deepened; with a sudden strange, wild gesture she 
threw herself forward. Her arms went half-way 


276 


UNDER THE LAW 


about her father’s neck. “ Oh, help me,” she begged, 
“ help me! Don’t you see that I can’t promise ? Oh, 
Father,” wept Sard, “ why should we two be like 
this ? ” 

It was perhaps the truest sign, had the girl but 
known it, of the depth of feeling that had been born 
in her. When a woman truly loves, her heart goes out 
to all those with whom she has a relationship under 
the great new trouble; for her there must be no small 
meanness, no stabbing dislikes, no impatience. When 
a woman truly loves, she is tender to the world. 

“ I can’t promise that,” the girl wept desperately; 
“ won’t you help me, Dad ? ” 

But she might as well have asked help from the 
automobile. With a strange gesture of disgust and 
spurning the Judge held her coldly off. What he 
said was reiterated with majesty. He slowly raised 
the cigar in his hand and looked at it. Suddenly, with 
a bitter ejaculation, a short wry shake of the whole 
body, he flung it away. He passed the slender figure 
that had thrown itself miserably on the turf at his 
side and walked rapidly toward the house. 

No one saw the Judge that long summer evening; 
his study was vacant. The talking-machine was si¬ 
lent, his goldfish pool, where he often sat feeding the 
fishes, was deserted; and yet the whole place, for¬ 
bidding and shadowed, seemed full of his personality. 

So Sard could not go to the house, she could not 
see Miss Aurelia, discuss the trial, conjecture as to 
Minga’s and Dunstan’s whereabouts. The girl, her 
body aching, her eyes half blind with surging 


AUTHORITY 


277 


thoughts, wandered to the little fruit orchard. It 
seemed to her that the gray ancient trees, like good 
little crones, welcomed her, and that the long grass 
and the rifts of leaves and patches of starred sky 
spoke to her. “You are part of us, Sard; we have 
struggled and fought, too; we have followed instincts 
and been smitten and wounded. You are like us, 
Sard, you have come into our laws.” 

The part of the orchard where the girl threw her¬ 
self down was dense and deep and its dimness cooled 
her heart and mind. Concealed from the murmurings 
of the house and garden, she lay pondering. The 
kind little old trees mothered her; she opened young 
eyes and stared pitifully at them, now clenching her 
hands and softly crying, now softly opening them and 
shuddering. 

“ As if I had done something wrongl As if I had 
done something wrong! ” 

Her own sentence beat and hammered into Sard’s 
brain until it seemed as if she had done something 
wrong. So, sometimes, suspicion and influence can 
put guilt on a clean creature! Under the strange 
half-awakeness, the half-conscious struggles of a 
full-grown woman coming to life, before her there 
suddenly rose the Gorgon face of Society, of the 
thing called actual life. It turned her young heart 
and body to stone. The looks and words of Sard’s 
father had been unmistakable; they had made her 
warm-hearted interest in the Man on the Place, the 
slow sense of delighted companionship, the mysterious 
attraction and trust, something shameful! 


278 


UNDER THE LAW 


“ As if I had done something wrong! As if I had 
done something wrong! ” 

Sard turned miserably, staring up at the sky. With 
the fairness, the willingness to face things peculiar to 
her, she could in a measure understand her father’s 
anger and sense of outrage. The girl hardly rebelled 
against this, unjust as it was, but her helplessness 
with her own problem, the impossibility of proceed¬ 
ing on this strange and rare path without shame and 
mud-flinging, for the very path itself became evident 
to her. 

She remembered Miss Aurelia’s twittering and mis¬ 
givings when once or twice she had gone to read with 
Colter on a bench under the horse-chestnut tree. 
She remembered Tawny Troop’s cheap scorn; she had 
been “ made ashamed.” 

Even Watts Shipman, it seemed, had had misgiv¬ 
ings. He, too, had endeavored to “ make her think,” 
and now it was out. There was no hiding it, no possi¬ 
ble explanation; she cared for Colter, cared for him 
with the marvelous gleaming tide, the dewy garden¬ 
like rapture, the vivid, etched, romantic stir and 
storm of a girl’s first feeling. It was out; known, dis¬ 
cussed, condemned and made shameful. The scarlet 
flame that had stained Sard’s face brought a blazing 
fire of pride into her heart. Boldly she cast imagina¬ 
tion and self-will on this fire of pride. 

“ I care /’ she breathed. “ I care. It is my life, not 
theirs! I will go before them all with Colter and 
say—‘ I care ’! ” 

The gray twilight grew darker in its language and 


V 


AUTHORITY 279 

breathed down to sleep. Roses emptied tiny jars of 
scent on the night. Lilies burned tall pastilles. 
Leaves pressed their little hands together in some 
prayer of darkness. Now and then some small thing 
like a clock stirred in the long grass near Sard and 
tried to remind her of time and obligations, but the 
woe of the whole youthful frame meant nothing to 
them. They went on in their little ticking way, busy 
and inevitable. 

These things did, however, mean unutterable emo¬ 
tions to the man who came suddenly upon them, who 
viewed them pitifully in the long grass where long 
ago the fireflies had begun to rise and glimmer. To 
the startled, half-rising girl’s face, Colter half groaned. 
Quickly he tempered his voice and manner. He, it 
seemed, was in no passion of resentment, and he 
sought to quell hers. 

“ I thought I saw you go in here—I waited a long 
time for you to come out.” Colter hesitated. “ I 
wanted to say ‘ good-bye ’ before I went. Do you 
know how late it is ? ” 

For answer she gave a long sigh of relief. “ I 
thought you had gone! ” she said. “ Is it late ? ” 

The man looked at the girl lying there in the long 
grass. It was a different Sard Bogart from any he 
had seen and known since the early spring, since that 
March day when she had rescued him. He could not 
look at her thus. Something instinctive and delicate 
made Colter turn his head away and remain standing. 
Under the trees he stood immovable, like a statue, 
thinking with utmost concern upon this prostrate, 


280 


UNDER THE LAW 


abandoned grief of youth. He stood, his back to her, 
looking out toward the slow gathering stars. 

His quiet, the absolute calm of him, made Sard 
wonder. Suddenly she sat up; her hands went to her 
hair. She was glad he could not see her eyes and 
wondered if he could have heard her sobbing. Again, 
inquiringly, she looked at the tall thin form with its 
broad shoulders and the head, nobly poised, set to a 
listening attitude. 

“If we are very quiet,” said Colter at last, “ we 
can hear the wind freshening down the river.” 
Somehow, she knew it was the way he took to quiet 
her. She was hushed like a storming child. 

After a few seconds: “ I did not hear you come.” 
She tried to say it naturally, but her relief, the long 
shuddering sigh, struck into him. The man, his face 
still turned away, murmured something. 

“ I did not hear you.” Sard rose and went toward 
him in the dark. 

“ Perhaps I should not have come,” he said. He 
carefully kept the senses of mistress and employed 
between them. “ But I was very anxious. Shall I 
go ? ” 

“ No.” The girl’s voice, under his steady leader¬ 
ship, grew clearer. Sard began to get herself to¬ 
gether. Here was someone who understood, who 
needed few words and who, she was convinced, cared. 
Sard only thought that word “ cared.” She dared 
not think the word “ love,” with its overwhelming 
waves. 

She stood there twisting a piece of grass in nervous 


AUTHORITY 


281 


fingers. “ Father told me! ” She said it with a kind 
of helpless shame. “ I am so sorry that you are going, 
Colter. You seemed so happy lately—and I—I be¬ 
lieved that we could help you, take you back to your¬ 
self, give you life again.” 

For answer the man turned and gave her one swift 
look. 

In the summer night Sard saw with wonder that 
there was a curious competency, a serene purpose in 
those eyes. In some dumb moment of wild joy she 
realized that her instinct had taught her true. This 
was no perplexed “ hired man ” with no friends nor 
employment. This was—this was- 

“ You have helped me more than you know.” His 
voice was grave and restoring. “ I have come back 
further to my own than I dare think of now, and I 
came by a beautiful path, your sympathy and pure 
faith. So you must not sorrow like this. You must 
not distress yourself like this. Things will be 
clearer.” 

In the night his clear voice of authority moved the 
girl strangely. It was an authority and assurance of 
high character that in her desperately clouded spirit 
she reached out for. Instinctively, like a wilting plant, 
the young form straightened and freshened until the 
man stopped looking at the stars. 

He turned toward her and looked long upon the 
face that had become his star. Colter made a little 
sorrowful gesture. “ I have brought you such pain, 
and—I can’t help!” His hands clenched for a sec¬ 
ond, the low voice for a second caressed her. “ But 



282 


UNDER THE LAW 


I will come back if you wish me to. I can promise 
you to come back/’ 

Her eyes darkened. “ Promise! ” she bade him 
fiercely. “ Promise-! ” 

But he was silent. It seemed that he was deter¬ 
mined to get Sard out of this mood, to hold her to 
her best self, the steady clear-sighted self he had 
seen. 

“ I do want you to,” breathed Sard without shame. 

“ I have grown used to you-” stammering. There 

was no immediate answer. 

She peered at the tall form standing in the summer 
night almost curiously. They had seemed to change 
places, Colter and she. Once she had protected, re¬ 
assured, stimulated and encouraged a weak and sickly 
man. Now, what was it that encircled, that from his 
gentle but firmly disciplined presence, dominated 
her? 

“ I think you must have grown better, stronger,” 
faltered the girl. She had a kind of childish awe. 
“ You seem different! ” 

The dark figure moved toward her. “ I am dif¬ 
ferent ! ” He breathed a little more rapidly. “ I 
found a letter—an old letter stuck into a small Greek 
book I had, and there were names, places that I re¬ 
membered. It brought back things—people.” 

The man’s voice suddenly sank into a bottomless 
pit of thronging memories. He stirred, and took a 
step toward her, holding out his hand. She put hers 
quickly into it. The ardent, generous action seemed 
again to make him a man of inflexible control, for he 




AUTHORITY 283 

held the hand only a moment, raised it to his lips, 
kissed it and then gently put it down. 

“You have always trusted me? You have always 
known me ? ” he asked in a sort of wonder. 

“ I have always known what you were inside your 
soul better than you knew yourself/' she returned 
vividly. And as the sensitive long face turned on her, 
“ I knew that you were you.” 

“If there were time/’ he answered, “ I could tell 

you what that letter has brought back,—names, events, 

associations, a college, but which college I don't 

know, and outside, some sorrowful things, some 

shadow that brought my Night. What that shadow 

is I don't know, and until I am sure it is no shadow 

on my own life I must not come to you, my dear. I 

mustn't come to vou-" 

* 

She was silent. 

Colter, an indescribable strength on his face, added, 
“ But outside of that, your father thinks, naturally, 
that I am unworthy, but I am sure I am worthy of 
you, as worthy as any man may be! Oh, things keep 
coming back, coming back! " 

From the man's voice one could see that these 
things that came back were a veritable tide of joy 
and anguish, but that in any case they were life and 
sanity. 

Suddenly, with uncontrolled tenderness, he moved 
to her side. “ Sard, child, you belong to me," he said 
gently. She could hear this man's breath, his heart 
plunging in his chest. She almost waited to be swept 
to him, to be lost in him, but that did not come. Un- 



284 


UNDER THE LAW 


der his voice and look lay judgment, a guidance that 
calmed all their passion. 

Colter took both her hands; he looked into her 
quivering face. “ I was hungry and ye took me in,” 
he said brokenly, “ a stranger and ye ministered unto 
me.” 

There was a long silence. The crickets clicked 
their little time devices; the stars were long ropes of 
flowers; the trees, in great shapes of withheld tender¬ 
ness, shadowed and shut them in; and in the little 
gray fruit orchard a girl’s spirit felt its wings brush 
against another spirit. A girl’s courage and fineness 
leaned with a great gratitude against a firmness and 
fineness greater than its own. 


CHAPTER XXII 


SUSPICION 

Shipman, after the conclusion of the trial of Terry 
O’Brien, spent most of the time chopping wood. 
Trees that had been felled during the spring he sawed 
into lengths. Splitting and piling into neat kindling 
not only kept his muscles elastic, but somehow, as the 
wood piles mounted, gave him a primal sense of the 
old pioneers’ fight against the cold and winter. That 
this wood found its way to the house of a needy widow 
with a little peaked boy about Pudge’s age was one 
of Shipman’s satisfactions. Long afterward, in the 
winter, the lawyer would wake of cold nights and 
think of the wind howling around the little valley 
house and of the center of heat that fed by his hands 
made it possible for two helpless people to escape that 
other awful Hand of Cold. 

To souls like Watts, intent upon some high concep¬ 
tion of honor and goodness, bent upon making them¬ 
selves into a fit home for the Spirit or some part of 
Spirit that possesses them, there come moments of 
awful despair and groping. The lawyer, sawing until 
his back burned with sore muscles, wa9 knowing this 
despair to its utmost, for the golden currents, the 
flowered tides of the Hudson River summer had 
nearly swamped him. The last weeks on the moun¬ 
tain top had been as those of a starving man sur- 

285 


286 


UNDER TEE LAW 


rounded with fruits and delicious spicy drinks—the 
bleak sense of failure, of dusty loneliness, of hurrying 
years and barren paths—his dry desert had opened 
out before him! 

The man, with unutterable sense of hungry flesh 
and spirit, knew himself as one who inevitably had 
gotten into a barren trail. His inner eyes, panic 
stricken, got the strange vision of an ending—a go- 
ing-out-of-the-world with no continuing strain of him 
left behind. No eyes that should be torched from his 
eyes; no lips that should turn his stuff of life into 
better words; no hand that like his should seek in 
darkness to find the keys to human breasts; no wife- 
comrade to speak comrade-words in the dark of lone¬ 
liness and bafflement; no home that should make the 
abiding spot in a shifting world; no child; no race; 
no blood sent forward; no continuing city. 

Shipman, halting with the perspiration streaming 
down his bare back, drew on a sweater. “ Dear old 
Bowwow ”—the lawyer sat down on his usual log. 
He pulled the dog over to him. “ Tuck, let me pour 
this last howl into your comfortable and safe ear, 
and then I’m done. Fm haunted, old chap, haunted 
with a horrible feeling of ending—and—and—I want 
to go on- 

“ You see, Tuck, old beggar, Fm getting old, and 
when I die there will be no little chap or little sister 
Shipman to carry on the soul of me, yes, even the 
foolishnesses of me; I suppose,” Watts inquired of 
his dog, “ I suppose you have lots of little puppies 
somewhere, some blue-ribboned and with kennel de- 



SUSPICION 


287 


grees that make you pretty proud? But me, Tuck, I 
don’t leave anything, not even a little adopted puppy. 
Nothing can laugh and say, ‘ My father was an awful 
duffer, but he made good salad dressing/ or * My 
father licked me once, but we used to go fishing to¬ 
gether.’ Tuck,” whispered the man fiercely, “ I want 
a son, a little young ’un to keep alive the things I 
dream and hope and believe. I want another me.” 

The strong fingers in the dog’s shaggy hair gripped 
upon the hateful idea of utter cessation of being, as 
many another has gripped. Let those who rage 
against Birth Control face rather this mystery of the 
man or woman who because of an ideal in the matter 
of human love dies without issue! Here is a Birth 
Control of much larger and more significant reach. 

“ The strange part of it is, Tuck, it’s easy enough 
to get children, but to get children who shall, no mat¬ 
ter what befalls them, be parented by high human love 
and faith, that is another thing.” The deep eyes 
stared into the shallow dog eyes. “ Well,” sighed 
Shipman, “ it’s very seldom that I care like this. It’s 
the beginning of autumn, that’s all. You don’t sup¬ 
pose, Tuck, that I really care?” 

Yet the man knew remorselessly that in the past 
week things had happened about which he unutterably 
cared. The chance mingling with the young life of the 
Willow Roads had shown him to himself in a way 
that he could not ignore or brush aside. He was a 
human man, a soul and body undeveloped, unrealized, 
inorientate in the great human plan. He had blown, 
like life seed, down the dry roads of philosophy and in- 


288 


UNDER THE LAW 


trospection, and had lain for a while by the springs 
of youth and action until some hidden principle within 
him had germinated. Now he craved direction, 
fruition! 

There floated through the mind of the lawyer the 
pictures of Minga, with her vivid capricious demands 
on him, her unwitting tempting of him; what would 
another man have done? Of what worth were his 
hesitations and restraints, Sard, with her high com¬ 
pulsions and swift fires? Why should he, Shipman, 
have let these fresh wonders of womanhood flit by 
like shadows? He groaned, knowing why—because 
do what he would, think what he would, Eleanor Led- 
yard held him. The woman of ice, the enshrined 
mystery of woman whom another man had called 
“ wife,” but who, Shipman believed, had never been 
true soul-wife, controlled his, Shipman’s, deepest, most 
inaccessible self. 

Of course, what had come to him was his own 
choice. There were many ways a man might take to 
come to grips with active life. Cowardly men, sly 
men or men who had not thought the thing out had 
taken these ways. Cynical men took them and then 
wondered why their lives were forever hurt by 
smirched and bleared life pictures, pictures that stayed 
in their minds. The ways of such men were not for 
him. Passion in its highest, most superb moments, 
Shipman knew himself to be capable of, but devotion, 
tenderness, the fair way of the approach of men and 
women to each other’s mystery was what his nature 
craved. His love principle was not that of a hot 


SUSPICION 


289 


moment of gratification. It was of the long, slow 
endeared proving of devotion. Plunged in thought, 
driven to his body's uttermost endurance with the 
sense of stirred, hungry, unsatisfied, uncompleted 
things, the lawyer at a footfall angrily raised his head. 

“ Curse it, can't I be alone ?" demanded Watts un¬ 
reasonably. " Get out, will you ? " He did not turn 
his head. " Get out," he called curtly. " This is 
private property; can’t you read the signs ? ” 

The footfall paused and a voice came quietly, “ I 
am Colter, Judge Bogart’s man. Could you see me a 
few moments?" 

With a smothered word the lawyer turned, smiling 
at his own rudeness, and held out his hand. 

" I thought it was some Curiosity Bump climbing 
up here. I’m not at all sure this sort of life is good 
for one. It makes one want to hog the very air." 
Watts, still smiling, looked keenly into the eyes of his 
visitor. Suddenly he glanced about him for Friar 
Tuck. “ Well, by all pedigreed pups," he breathed, 
"Tuck vised you, did he? Let you pass? If he 
barked, I didn’t hear him." 

Colter, taking the cigarette from the case held out 
to him, returned the searching gaze straightly. It was 
Shipman’s method to put any who sought him out in¬ 
stantly on a harmonious social ground. This was 
Judge Bogart’s hired man. It was also Sard’s protege, 
but more than that it was Shipman's private enigma. 
The situation was tense with possibilities for both men. 
Colter answered without self-consciousness. 

" Dogs don’t always bark at everyone." 


He was 


290 


UNDER THE LAW 


thoughtful for a moment. Lighting the cigarette and 
pushing the match end under his worn canvas shoe, 
he remarked simply, “ The only dogs I can remember 
barking at me are the shepherd dogs of Greece. And/’ 
laughingly indicating the little village up the river, 
“ the dogs of Morris when I was tramping it.” 

Watts, rolling his own cigarette, looked up idly. 

“ You’ve been in Greece? ” As he asked the ques¬ 
tion, the lawyer, by what process of intuition he him¬ 
self could not understand, anticipated the answer. 
“ Excavating ? ” 

Colter nodded. “ I think I was with the American 
School at Athens for a year or two. It would seem 
that I had some little knowledge about soils.” He 
hesitated in the curious way with which all who had 
known him had grown familiar. The intense fire-blue 
eyes concentrated on the placid river as on some 
clouded crystal of his opaque past. He seemed curi¬ 
ously like a fisherman watching for some bite of 
memory on his tremulous reaching line, lifting the 
empty hook time and again. 

“ Soils,” remarked the regardful lawyer, “ must 
have their own poetry.” 

The other hesitated, then as if quite forgetful where 
he was or on what errand he had come, Colter re¬ 
sponded evenly, “ They have an interest like that of 
a profound book, quite outside of what one assays 
or digs for. There are enough adventures in soils 
right around this Hudson River section back through 
the states of New York and New Jersey to make an 
Iliad.” 


SUSPICION 


291 


“ Hum.” Shipman inhaled his cigarette smoke, 
which flowed through his deep nostrils; with a curious 
lowering of the eyelids over the profound dark of his 
eyes, he let one hand drop loosely over his knee. It 
was the lawyer’s instinctive relaxed indifferent pose 
of listening and watching; listening for false voice 
tones, watching for shifting glimmers and lights of 
evasion and deceit, for the curious betrayal in eyelids 
and lip muscles. 

“ Soils, however, would hardly recommend them¬ 
selves as exciting to the average man.” 

The other man smiled for a second and glanced at 
the lawyer with a free relish of the subject. “They 
say young men need occasional wars to stimulate their 
sense of adventure.” The quiet voice was ironical, 
and Colter waved a disparaging hand. “ This river,” 
he said; “think of the poetry and adventure of the 
great minds born on its banks. Think of the poetry 
and adventure for science and enterprise still to come 
along its banks as a great Water Road,” he indicated 
a slow train of freight cars on the opposite shore, 
“ and as one of the great verses in the Odyssey of 
Trade. Why, leaving out the Poem of Hauling, I 
suspect that back of these hills there are important 
contributions to history and geology and art. There 
must be Indian burying grounds filled with the half 
ossified Indian chiefs, their pottery and tribal imple¬ 
ments.” Colter, leaning on his arms, apparently lost 
in some pleasant fancy of his own, smoked dreamily. 
“To find these things is better adventure than plung¬ 
ing a bayonet into another man’s stomach,” he smiled. 


292 


UNDER THE LAW 


Shipman’s eyes, however, remained half closed. 
This was all very pretty. The chap had perhaps been 
a soldier, and attended a military school. He might 
have taken courses as a war engineer. Yet a clever 
cracksman or modem safe technician would get up a 
long lingo like this, especially if he wanted to “ put 
something over,” to sound the mental habits, resources 
and association of the other man, catalogue them for 
some confidence scheme of his own. Watts crossed 
one leg over the other and smoked at the sky. His back 
was to the river which the other man sat facing. His 
frequent sharp looks were swift and incisive. So far 
the lawyer had made no effort to find out Colter’s 
errand. There was all the time in the world; mean¬ 
while there was a girl down there with a girl’s roman¬ 
tic sense of faith and belief in this man, probably a 
farceur and trickster. It might be his, Shipman’s, 
bitter job to have to go to this girl as her friend and 
tell her the truth. 

“ I can see that you take a good deal of interest in 
such things.” Then, not without some marveling on 
the part of the lawyer, the two plunged into an ab¬ 
sorbed discussion of seeps and sheds, of green marl 
and sandstone, of clay gravel and sand, of mineral 
waters and sources of potash and phosphates, the 
problems of tunneling and boring, the opening up of 
this and that manufacture and industry, the prophecies 
of latent oils and resins and cements. 

The lawyer, thoroughly enjoying it, yet obstinately 
fancied that he sensed some insecurity, some too- 
varied mingling of knowledge back of it. So, he told 


SUSPICION 


293 


himself, might any high-powered confidence man give 
the right answers and take the right cues. There were 
books nowadays, compendiums of knowledge. Just 
reading modern advertisements made a man’s mind 
agile and slick. 

“ So you’ve been in Greece.” Shipman was watch¬ 
ful, at the same time smoothly disarming. He gently 
flicked the ashes from his cigarette. “ You must know 
Gnossus, Crete, Andritsena, and, let’s see,” warily, 
“ the name of that mountain temple that the French¬ 
man discovered.” 

Colter's face lightened enthusiastically. “ Bassae.” 
He looked interestedly into the lawyer’s face. The 
other paused a few moments. 

“ You remember such things?” remarked the lawyer 
significantly. 

“ Yes,” with eagerness, “ I do. The Greek hasn’t 
gotten away from me.” Colter looked almost hap¬ 
pily into Shipman’s face. “ A great deal comes back 
along academic lines,” he faltered. 

“ Um! ” Shipman tossed away his cigarette. He 
did not light another. He loafed against the back of 
the tree, his fingers lightly and speculatively tapping 
on his little silver match-box, his lips half whistling 
while his mind ran over possible and probable things. 
He reviewed everything he had ever seen of Colter, 
particularly the man’s eyes that day on the Hacken¬ 
sack, looking into his own with their look of appeal, 
“ Who am I ? ” Very gently, without turning his 
head, with voice unemotional, undramatic, the lawyer 
now asked his own question. 


294 UNDER THE LAW 

“Who are you? Why do you conceal who you 
are? ” 

Colter, who had as he talked been dreamily staring 
at the river, sprang quickly back to an attitude of at¬ 
tention. Every motion he made, every slightest move¬ 
ment of hand or eyelash or the corners of lips, was 
under a remorseless observation, that of a genius for 
reading human beings. 

“ Who are you ? ” The question was repeated very 
quietly, but now it had the note of inexorable author¬ 
ity. It was asked on behalf of Sard, whose trusting 
face and figure made it on Shipman’s lips, stern, un¬ 
compromising. 

Colter, his face flushing, rose. The man had 
changed in a deadly sort of way. His head from 
which he had removed the cap sunk suddenly for¬ 
ward as if his face could not look into that old enigma 
—“ Who am I ? ” The hair, swept back in its curious 
boy-like wave, was of vital copper under which Ship- 
man noted a very few gray hairs which seemed curi¬ 
ously premature for the face opposite. The white 
skin, slightly freckled, had a youthful, good modeling; 
the face bones made it of pure English build. Ship- 
man, puzzled, tried to analyze the curious look of 
sorrow and patient suffering on it. His gaze went to 
one or two very small scars as of smallpox. 

One or two very small scars , as of smallpox! The 
lawyer stared at the white teeth showing under a 
mustached lip set to a gaunt look of bravery and men¬ 
tal struggle. 

“ I beg your pardon,” said the other, “ I had for- 


SUSPICION 


295 


gotten—forgotten myself. You treated me like a 
friend, and I went along easily. Things came easily 
—I was remembering/’ Colter sat up, his hands 
working at his belt. “ Things came to me, but,” he 
shook his head, “ you ask who I am.” 

The man turned the old mask of suffering on his 
interlocutor and shook his head. If the thing was 
acting, it was prodigious acting. Shipman told him¬ 
self that such acting had gotten Sard’s soul away 
from her. It should not, however, have her entire! 
That face with its strange look of sorrow suddenly 
maddened the lawyer. He straightened. This mask 
must be torn off. This charlatan must be shown up. 
Now an old vulpine habit of the court-room came on 
the legal face. 

“ Who are you? ” Shipman thrust his chin forward 
in a curious wolfish way; his mouth grinned while his 
eyes stared implacably. It was the old terrorizing 
third degree method. The method of which the law¬ 
yer in his better moments was secretly ashamed, but 
on which he knew any human reserve could be broken. 
Watts Shipman, with a kind of battle scent, felt him¬ 
self to be pitted against something too shrewd, too 
delicately perceptive and elusive, to respond to other 
methods. And, well, the lawyer was not accustomed 
to being beaten at his own game! His glance, like a 
look of dreadful night, a look of knowledge of all 
human hiding, turned on the man. It was as if with 
incandescent power he would trace the very vitals, sift 
the fugitive thought and judgment, drive to the wall 
all subterfuges, snap handcuffs on the very shadow in 


296 


UNDER THE LAW 


the eyes, see the very juices and chemistry of the 
living, breathing soul and body before him. 

“ Who are you? ” 

The other man, with a man’s defiance, some dignity 
and assurance as of bygone things, had risen. “ Of 
course, you had a right to ask that,” he said slowly. 

“ But I wish you had not because—because-” He 

passed his hand wearily over his forehead. “ It is 
hard for me to keep things clear, to go straight ahead. 
I came up to you here to ask for work.” 

“To ask for work? ” 

“ I hoped,” said Colter simply, “ that you could give 
me some suggestion. Judge Bogart has asked me to 
leave.” 

In the silence that followed the lawyer tried to keep 
intense curiosity and anxiety from his eyes. Invol¬ 
untarily Sard’s name came to his lips. Stealing a 
look at the other man, he felt that Colter would also 
lock his uncertain lips on that name. 

On the pause the flood of intelligence that swept 
through the lawyer brought obstinate anger and re¬ 
sentment. “ Hog,” he breathed as once before, 
“ hog! ” He could see Sard’s wild dismay, her sense 
of shame as of someone who had been untrustworthy, 
the poor child’s friendlessness. “ Hog,” said the law¬ 
yer in the bitter back room of his mind, “ animal! ” 

Yet was not the Judge, the father of the girl, right? 
Could a man who knew the world allow a thing so 
radiantly impulsive her instinctive freedoms with an 
interloper, a rapscallion, someone who dodged on his 
tracks, played a worn-out game of ignorance as to 



SUSPICION 297 

his own identity, the responsibility he had in the 
world ? 

“ Who are you ? ” repeated Shipman steadily. Then 
as a thought struck him, “ Why did Judge Bogart ask 
you to leave ? ” The lawyer bethought himself of the 
“ word test ” in psycho-analysis. What word would 
make this fellow change, cringe, become maudlin, ex¬ 
planatory ? 

There was a short silence until the other man re¬ 
plied calmly, “ I should prefer not going into that.” 

Suddenly, to the lawyer’s enormous surprise, a curi¬ 
ous thing happened. Colter, after taking a few nerv¬ 
ous steps back and forth, came up to him, holding out 
his hand, and with an air almost winning in its friend¬ 
liness, said, “ Good-bye, I’m sorry I bothered. You 
see, I hoped you could help me to get work. If not, 
I must go.” 

The lawyer studied him. “ What kind of work ? ” 
he asked curtly. 

“ Any kind to get food and lodging while I wait.” 

“ Wait for what?” 

“ For things to come back to me,” said Colter sim¬ 
ply. “ I think things are beginning to get clearer. 
Just now when we talked,” he waved his hand, “ doors 
opened all around me. I felt myself back in myself. 
The true me—I—you see, I am in much better health.” 

The man stood there irresolute, the eyes wavering 
in their intensity of attempted remembrance, some 
look of assurance and confidence alternating with the 
old shifting look of dread and dismay that at moments 
still swept the fine drawn face. It was this look of 


298 


UNDER THE LAW 


shifting dread that had always kept the lawyer sus¬ 
picious. What had this man done that could give to 
strong eyes like that the averted haunted look they 
sometimes held? His manner changing with a half 
apologetic smile, he turned to his visitor. 

“ I take it you’ve been a scientific man, college-bred. 
Have you by any chance a degree ? ” Shipman almost 
laughed as he asked it. 

The other knit his brows, and returned the look 
earnestly. 

“ Would you believe me if—if I tell you what I 
have come to believe, what I think is possible, would 
you think me crazy ? ” 

Then a slow sense of what had been of the man’s 
horror dawned on the lawyer. ‘‘If amnesia were 
true, if one were dimly conscious of one’s life paths 
and had somehow, somewhere been swept out of these 
paths, and there were no landmark to help one go 
back, why then,” the grim mouth shut on the doubts. 
Shipman nodded. There was something in the nod 
that the other man in his helpless gentleness compre¬ 
hended. The nod said, “ I don’t believe you. I don’t 
trust you, but I won’t take advantage of you.” It was 
hardly akin to Sard’s whole-souled trust. 

One arm crossed behind him, Colter began pacing 
restlessly up and down the small space where the tree¬ 
chopping and wood-sawing had made a little theatre. 
He spoke rapidly, disconnectedly. “ I have come to 
believe that I have been a college man. I even be¬ 
lieve that I have had certain honors. There have been 
achievements along scientific lines. I can so far re- 


SUSPICION 


299 


member nothing in sequence back of the day Miss 
Bogart found me. Since that I have a perfect power 
of memory.” The man halted and seemed to wait with 
a strained patience for things to pour in on the open 
sensitive plate of his healing memory. At last, fishing 
in an inner pocket, he held out a little book bound in 
green vellum. It was very worn and had evidently 
been constantly read. “ I have always had this book, 
wherever I have been. For months it was the one 
real thing. It was here, tucked back in a sort of 
envelope in the cover, that a week ago I found an old 
letter from a man I once knew. When I try to con¬ 
nect my memories with this man something profoundly 
horrible sweeps me, and—and I grow full of panic/' 

Watts, with suspicions he could not control, reached 
out for the book. At the same time he looked for 
anything that might further identify this mysterious 
Colter. He peered almost with anger into a face so 
fine and tempered in its sad look of opaque visions. 
Turning the opening leaves, Shipman read in the little 
book, “ Oxford, December 25 , 19 — to M. L. from his 
fellow gypsy, Tarrant." 

“ Tarrant. Tarrant," the name arrested the lawyer. 
He turned sobered eyes upon Colter. “ Who is Tar¬ 
rant?" he asked. Watts, with an annoyed expres¬ 
sion, wrinkled his brows. Where in thunder had he 
heard that name Tarrant? 

“ I do not know," said Colter, “ yet somehow, I be¬ 
lieve it is someone I have known." 

Suddenly, as in a lovely picture, the man saw a 
June garden with the Ramapo Mountains back of it. 


300 


UNDER THE LAW 


He saw distant daisy fields, a little white gate, the tall 
wands of purple and blue canterbury bells; a little boy 
sat cutting out paper dolls and a woman, whose dark 
blue eyes were shy with him and whose voice had 
faltered as she had told him a story and who had 
shown him a picture in a locket that she had drawn 
up warm from her white breast. The woman’s voice 
was always dreamily in Shipman’s memory. Now it 
told him a story. 

The story of a West African expedition that had 
ended fatally, disastrously, where the men died like 
sheep of smallpox, where George Ledyard’s brother, 
the famous biologist, Martin Ledyard, had striven for 
the lives of the men, but had only been able to save 
three. Then Dr. Ledyard had rowed down the trop¬ 
ical river with the body of his dearest friend, the 
surgeon, Tarrant, in a canoe made from a hollow tree. 
The natives, having deserted them, had left the scien¬ 
tific party without canoes. Tarrant, Martin Ledyard’s 
dearest friend, his brother-in-science! 

There was a long silence before the lawyer looked 
up into the face of that man who walked up and 
down, his russet head erect, one arm crossed behind 
him on his back. Colter’s face, absorbed, earnest, 
rational, had yet that curious look of hesitancy and 
bafflement that the lawyer began to know was the 
thing in which he had always disbelieved, the thing he 
had scouted, amnesia. The lawyer’s knowledge of 
shell-shock, of trance, of the results of profound and 
tragic sorrow, served him now. He could no longer 
repudiate this evident spiritual and mental submersion. 


SUSPICION 


301 


But what would cause amnesia, apart from trying 
physical conditions? Not even horrible experiences 
in West African jungles with one’s friends dying con¬ 
secutively of smallpox. The loss of a man’s friend? 
Not altogether. Illness, exposure? Not altogether. 
Shock? Shockt 

Watts Shipman, plunged in thought, searched in 
his imagination for the one shock that might have 
shut the doors of memory. Colter, looking patiently 
at him, hazarded a suggestion. 

“ That book,” motioning to it, “ that book is a sort 
of talisman. Sometimes it brings back whole se¬ 
quences of memory, and then that letter that you see 
speaks of men of science, who are living to-day, as if 
I and the writer had known them together.” 

Watts laughed, and turned away with something 
like a sneer. 

“ Awfully clever, old chap. I’ve no doubt you’ve 
done this successfully many times, but,” the lawyer 
turned abruptly, “ I have seen a good deal, you know.” 
Sharply, “ Now drop all this memory-camouflage. 
Tell me who you are, why you’re here, what knocked 
you out, and I’ll give you any old job you want— 
come,” said Watts authoritatively. “ You’ve been a 
cultivated man, no doubt about that. You’ve traveled; 
you’re a ‘ has-been ’! You’ve come a cropper some 
way—drink, dope, women,” he looked narrowly into 
the still white face. “ Some disgrace, perhaps some 
tragedy—you’re ashamed of something.” 

It was so brutal, so abrupt, that it had its imme¬ 
diate result. There was a long and very curious si- 


302 


UNDER THE LAW 


lence. It was as if the two men staring at each 
other had been fighting a secret fight under the open 
one of incredulity and effort to reveal. Both of them 
under the threshold of intelligence knew what that se¬ 
cret fight was. It was Sard! All harmony had van¬ 
ished. Something hard and unlovely had taken its 
place. It was as if the two worked desperately to 
create a wall between them and the wall was now 
finished. It was an inevitable wall of a girl’s fresh 
vibrant personality. 

But Colter, without emotion, with a murmured 
apology for having intruded, turned to go. “ Perhaps 
I was mistaken,” he said, his face and voice controlled 
as usual. He had the usual and somewhat helpless 
courtesy of one unable to fight with another man's 
weapons of prestige and tradition. But on the riven, 
sorrow-lined face was an expression of forbearance 
and pure masculine sweetness such as only fine habits 
and lofty associations can create. He held out his 
hand. “ Thank you for giving me your time,” he said 
gravely. 

Friar Tuck came nosing along the ground, follow¬ 
ing up some poem of scent of which he had begun the 
first verse at five a. m. Shipman, his hand reaching 
out for the dog's devoted head, dug deep into 
the heavy neck fur. Something on the lawyer’s face 
was torn and of queer struggle. He stood there tous¬ 
ling the dog, letting his own body be half swayed this 
way and that by the slight playful fracas. Suddenly 
the dark-browed lawyer looked up at the retreating 


SUSPICION 


303 


figure. He scowled horribly. “ Damn it! ” he called 
out explosively, “ damn it! Stay where you are! ” 

At the other’s surprised pause, his look of inquiry, 
Shipman strode forward. He held out his own hand. 
“ Shake.” He made the strange awkward picture of 
ultimate manhood, of the true warrior type who van¬ 
quishes himself before any other enemy. The man 
who will not stand out against the assault of a finer 
soul. “ Colter,” said the lawyer sharply, “ I’m an 
ass, a cad, and you are a gentleman.” 

At the slight quick color on the other’s face. Ship- 
man stumbled doggedly on. “ Yes, sir, I’ll be hanged 
if I can believe that about the amnesia. I never saw 
any and I never had any, and I haven’t got in all the 
evidence yet, but I know one thing. You are a gentle¬ 
man—curse it! ” said the lawyer standing there. “If 
you mustn’t think me a yellow dog—now,” said Ship- 
man, standing straight, his professional manner re¬ 
turning, his hands on Tuck’s neck, “ I’ve been ob¬ 
serving something and remembering some things and 
I can’t help wondering-” 

There was very little answering interest in the oth¬ 
er’s face. The wall was still between them, and Col¬ 
ter, some idea driving him, was for getting away. 
Seeing this, the lawyer, with an inevitable boyish sense 
of coup, hastily pulled a wallet from the pocket of 
his coat lying on a log. Taking a long newspaper 
clipping from it, he placed it before the other’s eyes. 
“ Do you know that face ? ” he asked eagerly. There 
was a cut of a man’s head in the article. 

Colter gravely took the clipping. Then, as he read 



304 


UNDER THE LAW 


the headline, he seemed to shrink. His intense blue 
eyes in awful inquiry went to Shipman's. 

“ George Ledyard Forges and Embezzles ." The 
man stood there a long while, the paper dropping in 
his hand. He read no more; his dry lips worked; 
once or twice he passed his hand over his face. At 
last, “ That is what I saw on the steamer," he muttered 
slowly. “ I saw this heading on the wireless bulletin 
on the steamer in which I was coming home. It made 
me ill. I was already weak, had fever. I went to my 
cabin and can remember no more." Suddenly Colter 
looked at the lawyer. “ You will have to help me," 
he began in a firm voice; “ things are rushing in on 
me. Tarrant; my brother's death, dishonor, the hos¬ 
pital. I got away from the hospital—I—I—help me," 
beseeched Colter thickly. He staggered, both hands 
out toward the lawyer. “ I must keep my head clear. 
I can’t let things sweep in too fast. I must keep my 
head clear," groaned the man. “ Oh, for her sake, for 
her sake," he muttered. u Don't you see—for her 
sake!" 

The man stared with silent appeal. The strong tides 
of memory poured through his eyes. With hands 
desperately tossed up, with a body that seemed to 
snap under one groan, he fell unconscious at Ship¬ 
man's feet 


CHAPTER XXIII 


THE PERCEPTIONS OF MINGA 

The “explosive dust” of the Trout County court¬ 
room had not yet subsided. Two young heads had 
not yet bowed before the final judgments of the law. 
After a week of mysterious communings, sudden hid¬ 
ings of and exchanges of letters, a series of hidden 
glances and specially planned conferences, Dunstan 
and Minga announced at the breakfast table one 
morning that they would take the green car and be 
gone all day. They carefully did not state where they 
were going and no one dreamed the dramatic char¬ 
acter of their plans. 

The rest of the family received the news without 
comment, the Judge merely remarking: 

“ Wash the car before you use it, and pay for your 
own gas.” 

Dunstan received these orders with benevolent un¬ 
derstanding. “ Well said,” he approved his father im¬ 
pudently ; with lifted eyebrows he grimaced at Sard. 

“ We miss our good friend Colter,” he murmured. 
“ There was a fine literary washer of cars. I mind me 
of the splendid hexameters that rolled from the am- 
nesian lips while he applied himself to the mud¬ 
guards.” The dancing eyes questioned his sister’s 

3°5 


306 


UNDER THE LAW 


face. The Judge’s watchful look went also to this 
face, but there was no book for the world to read. 

At whatever cost to her own hunger for sympathy 
the girl, sitting at the coffee urn, in Miss Aurelia’s 
temporary absence, had the absorbed air of the knight 
who prays beside armor. For Sard was devising 
pathetic, youthful armors of self-control and wisdom. 
Her world could not share her belief nor be with her 
in her ardent things, therefore she would keep these 
ardent things bright and enshrined in her own lonely 
heart. 

Colter had said, “ I will come back.” Sard, her 
being thrilling at the words, had dared to whisper, 
“ Promise—promise ! ” She was so ashamed, so thank¬ 
ful for that daring now! Want him? The silent girl 
there dared not tell herself how she wanted him, could 
not put even into secret words the tremulous ecstasy 
of this wanting. Outside of her, curious faces like 
Dunstan’s and Minga’s and Miss Aurelia’s and the 
Judge’s looked at her own absorbed face and dis¬ 
approved or were tolerant. It was nothing. Sard 
saw them as a person standing in a soft firelit, flower- 
bright room sees faces passing in profile on a cold 
street. 

Dunstan’s comment was made sotto voce , from the 
Arabian nights: 

“‘Fish, Fish, art thou in thy duty?’ The fishes 
raised their heads and said, * If you reckon, we 
reckon - * ” The youth looked around the break¬ 

fast table amiably as if he expected to be answered in 
kind. Receiving no like sallies he pushed his chair 



THE PERCEPTIONS OF MING A 307 

and sauntered forth, followed in a few discreet sec¬ 
onds by Minga. As the two fussed over the car¬ 
washing, low voices discussed beside their own plan 
the whole problem of the Man on the Place. 

“ It’s the real thing for Con Sordino, I guess,” Dun- 
stan sighed. “ Gosh, suppose the duffer is a confi¬ 
dence man or a bigamist ? The papers have such every 
day; their kind always gets amnesia when convenient,” 
the boy sighed; “ sort of rotten to have your own 
sister go nuts on a Wandering Willy. I wonder.” 
The lad turning on the hose, softly whistled. Minga 
giggled. 

“ It’s so funny,” she declared, “ as if Sard sort of 
thought Colter would turn to a prince if you only 
waved the right wand.” 

“ No, it’s not that; she really saw a prince or some¬ 
thing like that in him,” the brother declared. “ Sard’s 
like that when she looks at anybody, Minga; she 
doesn’t see an ordinary flapper, like you; she sees a 
future stateswoman, a fearless fighter for the good, 
the true, the pure, the thing that might be.” Dunstan 
was only half flippant. 

“ My goodness! ” Minga was awed. “ But say, 
about Colter. I went up to that room after he left, the 
room over the garage, and will you believe it, I found 
Sard there. She was sitting queer and still and in her 
hand she had a book she’d lent him. Well, my word,” 
said Minga violently, “ it was the awfulest old scien¬ 
tific flubdub, first causes, amcebas and protoplasms, all 
those out-of-date things.” 

“ Yep, all the hogwash; they still print it,” said 


308 


UNDER THE LAW 


Dunstan. “ That was the old fellow’s line, always 
chewing at those bones the old guy was; self-made- 
man-stuff, y’ know.” 

The girl groaned. “ Don’t I hate it! We had it at 
college, so of course I’m through it all. You going to 
cram your two last years with that sawdust?” in¬ 
quired Minga. 

The washer of automobiles ceased his sponging of 
the long green body. Dunstan stood, brown-shirted 
sleeves rolled up, young head hot and tumbled, eye 
bright and discriminating. 

“ No, Grandma,” he turned promptly, “ I am not. 
I cram on facts. See? I cut out all the frills and 
monkey and snail lore, and I root around just enough 
Latin and mathematics to look good to the old-timers. 
All I want is a diploma. See, so’s I can walk into 
any chap’s office and call him Bill and look him in his 
Pie Rooky Beta Kipper eye and say, ‘ Now then, my 
young Arabian Nights Oil Pasha, I may look like the 
One-eyed Calendar, but I’ve got the same world-series, 
all-American learning you’ve got, and I don’t propose 
to be kicked out of this office till I get what I came 
for, see? ’ That,” said Dunstan mopping his brow, “ is 
my idea of education.” 

Minga nodded. “ You sure do need an education 
in business,” the girl agreed thoughtfully. “ I know 
the Mede keeps saying that if he had his choice he’d 
give up his income and keep his brains, but not me,” 
said serious Minga. “ What use would my brains be 
to me if I hadn’t an income? ” 

“ You gotter have brains all right,” said Dunstan; 


THE PERCEPTIONS OF MING A 309 

“ and then you’ve gotter forget you got ’em or that 
anybody else has ’em. Look at the after-dinner 
speeches, you know that rot, and the political ones, all 
done by famous men; don’t they prove that brains are 
only a side-show? You just have ’em, but when you 
get there you don’t use ’em. That’s the idea.” 

The bobbed head leaning seriously by the side of the 
cropped one to swab the runners considered seriously 
these things. 

Finally Minga announced, “ Say, while I’m speak¬ 
ing of deep things and all, I’m going home next week. 
After we snitch Terry from jail I’m done! ” 

Dunstan looked at her sagely. He stood up, 
stretched, and eyed his friend with increasing dis¬ 
approval. “ Pshaw, that’s a new kind of slush * what 
have you got, indigestion? Go home, nothing. Why, 
after the Terry rescue-” 

Minga rubbed solemnly on the running-board; her 
friend looked alarmed. 

“You have not got to go home! What do the 
Mede and Persian care as long as you’re where they 
can send you day-letters and telephones. No, ma’am, 
you’ve got to stay here in this house of the seven 
sleepers and nobody-to-wash-cars, you’ve got to stay 
here and sass the governor and shock Aunt Reely and 
keep Sard from eloping with the iceman and once 
in a while, for deviltry, hold my hand. That’s what 
you’ve got to do.” 

The boyish faun-like face smiled belligerently, but 
Dunstan’s eyes had subtle anxiety. “You haven’t 
really to go ? ” he inquired. “ Aw come on, can’t you 



310 


UNDER THE LAW 


start a new sweater and say you can’t go home till 
you’ve finished it? I’ve seen many a girl work that 
dodge,” remarked Dunstan. “ On account of this be¬ 
ing the only place you can match the wool,” he nodded 
acutely. 

Minga stood pulling down her belt. She gave the 
bobbed head a resolute shake. “ I’m going,” she said. 
She stood there, a curious little picture of untried 
resolution. “ I don’t know exactly what’s come over 
me,” the girl confessed. “ I’ve nothing against you, 
Dunce; you’ve been a real sweet idiot, and I’m going 
to see us through the Terry rescue, but after the 
Terry rescue,” said Minga in a solemn tone, “ home 
I’ve got to go.” She hesitated a moment adding, 
“ Anyway, after that, you see, Judgie will hate me and 
turn me out and Aunt Reely will be nervous and Sard 
will be queer and gloomy and you-” 

“ Anyway I’ll be annoying,” said Dunstan obsti¬ 
nately, “ the way I’ve been right along.” 

There was a long silence for this talkative pair. At 
last: 

“ Anyway,” said Minga, “ I sort of see things dif¬ 
ferent. I can’t seem to want to visit around as much 
as I used. I’m going home to be a daughter, that sort 
of thing.” 

“ Oh, deliver us! ” groaned Dunstan. “ Oh my 
soul! Say, what’s the matter, girl, didn’t your last 
allowance come? Nobody’s a daughter nowadays; it 
isn’t done. Say, Minga, this is awful! Anyway— 
don’t go! ” 

Minga stood first on one foot, then on the other. In 



THE PERCEPTIONS OF MINGA 311 


her mind, a little dazed and haunted by recent events, 
still rang Shipman’s summing up of her after their 
various encounters, and the final night at the dance. 
The lawyer had held the two tantalizing hands very 
tightly and murmured, “ You are a very dear little 
thing, a very dear little thing.” He had said it with 
a sort of tortured groan. Minga was beginning to 
realize with a good deal of slow pain how a man might 
resolutely hold a girl like her away from himself and 
herself, from something to which, the girl was clever 
enough to know, she had half unconsciously tried to 
lure him. The sentence with its tender repudiation of 
her had penetrated to something honest in her heart. 
Then had come the morning outside the court-house 
when Shipman had defined life to them. The older 
man’s power, his penetrating analysis, had somehow 
reached to the soul that lay dormant, the little butter¬ 
fly character had sleepily stirred, the little blue egg 
had broken, and Minga, a scared soul, looked forth 
upon a universe that had a spiritual endlessness. Some 
new dim sense of men came to her, not as strong 
creatures that must be made silly slaves to women or 
played upon by light motives, but as loyal brothers 
who had enormous power of strength or suffering 
through women. Watts Shipman’s world of standards 
and honor stood out to her like a strange austere 
country of mountains and looming towers as to which 
she was supremely curious, but into which her feet 
hardly knew how to tread. 

Minga looked earnestly at Dunstan’s back. “ You 
see,” she worked this out as she had once worked it 


312 


UNDER THE LAW 


out with Sard, “ you see, Dunce, whether we like it or 
not, we’ve got to get busy, us young ones. It’s queer,” 
said little Minga with an omniscience not to be de¬ 
spised, “ but though the grown-ups try all they can to 
discourage us when we do take hold, they know as 
well as we do that we’ve got to take hold. We,” said 
Minga, with awed prophecy, “ our kind, the Bunches, 
don’t you know, all over the world. The French 
Bunch, like us, the Italian Bunch, the English Bunch, 
the flappers of the world. Our Bunches have got to 
run the world; it’s awful, it’s queer, but,” the little 
bobbed head nodding violently, “ it’s true; so we ought 
to be preparing. The fathers and mothers and aunts 
and uncles and things hate to have us take hold before 
they tell us what to do. Though you can see,” said 
Minga solemnly, “ that they don’t half of them know 
what to do themselves. So we have got to take hold.” 
The bobbed maiden was sober to a terrifying degree. 
Dunstan stared at the little mouth that summed up, 
“And I suppose for this reason we ought to sort of 
brace up and begin to take notice. Now, for in¬ 
stance,” said Minga with a sudden virtuous decision, 
“ I’ve made up my mind that love is divine; I’m not 
going to fool any more. Love is divine,” announced 
Minga. 

“ Wow! ” said Dunstan, “ don’t hit me there again, 
as the lady said.” 

“ Yes, it is,” returned his car-washing companion 
determinedly. “ I—I—I’ve grown sick of these petting 
parties and all this silly stuff. When you really don’t 
care you—you just don’t do it, so I’m going to cut 


THE PERCEPTIONS OF MINGA 313 


out these fake engagements just to wear different 
kinds of rings—I—I—if love is really divine/' said 
Minga, she looked half timidly off to the mountain 
where the organ builder’s house stood, “ why, those 
petting parties are kind of common; do you get me ? ” 

“Do I get you?” ejaculated Dunstan. “Say,” he 
straightened up, “ if you knew what I knew. Say, I 
could tell you things, Minga.” 

Minga, her resolutions almost overcoming her, sat 
down on an upturned box. “ I really feel different,” 
she said solemnly. “After that night Tawny Troop 
bawled me out, and—and something else happened, 
well, I got a sort of different feeling. Now, for in¬ 
stance,” said Minga, “ old people; I don’t want to 
make fun of them any more. Isn’t that queer? I 
want to sort of study ’em and see what they mean. 
Imagine! I really want,” went on Minga in an awed 
voice, “ to hang around and talk seriously to Judgie, 
and—and queer unnatural things like that. I’m going 
to be a daughter and sort of get interested; isn’t it 
awful ? ” 

Dunstan walked lovingly around his car, trying all 
its functions, and cast an appreciative eye on his com¬ 
rade. “ Good stuff,” he commended. “ The old birds 
must have some sense packed away somewhere. The 
old-timers like to beat the air and say things, but they 
ain’t so low in the grave but what they see a few facts 
too. 

“ Well,” the youth stood up straight, hands in 
pockets, whistling softly, “ the ‘ Green Bottle ’ is her¬ 
self again, cleaned, curried and coddled. Got that let- 


314 


UNDER THE LAW 

ter? I'll go in and change my duds, and then I guess 
we're ready. What? You got Terry’s letter all 
right ? ” 

Minga produced the letter; with one eye on the dis¬ 
tant house, the two rereading it together, enjoying the 
sense of secrecy, half giggling at the queer spelling 
and altogether excited over their plan. The black 
round script ran thus: 

“The gang stops work at five. The guards goes 
first to git the truck ready to take us bak to the pen! 
If you come threw about that time, I will beat it to 
your car and take the chance. Go slow till I jump; if 
I catch on, go like hell; go like hell anyways. There 
is a curve ahead to the right, but that is what you 
want, as the guards got motorcycles. So no more at 
present. Give the duck that brings this fifty cents 
and oblige 

“ You Know Who.” 

As Minga read, the two young faces suffused with a 
thrilled fire; weeks ago at the trial Minga and Dunce 
had decided to abduct Terry. The legal aspects of the 
thing hardly occurred to them. This sort of thing 
was done in the movies successfully, why not in actual 
life? Their plan was to snatch the boy from the 
road-building gang sent out by the state’s prison to 
the stone crusher on the Western Shore where road¬ 
making was in progress. Terry was then to be con¬ 
veyed in their automobile to the deserted Stone Oven 
of Revolutionary fame near Bear Mountain. Here, 
where a little stream wandered through the bracken, 
he could be driven to every day and supplied with 


THE PERCEPTIONS OF MINGA 315 

food until it should be safe to convey him to a night 
train and ship him to the West. Minga and Dunce 
had worked out the thing with dime novel detail, with 
dramatic appreciation of its flavor and dash, until the 
project ceased to have its original motive of saving 
Terry and gradually became their own twentieth cen¬ 
tury private automobile adventure. They had a 
charmed sense of thrill and a pleasant feeling of out¬ 
witting such staid and sober folk as Watts Shipman. 
It was not at all uncharacteristic of young persons, not 
at all uncharacteristic of the time, not at all uncharac¬ 
teristic of the laughable enigma of human nature that 
at the very moment that the two were starting out to 
do something entirely discreditable, inevitably wrong, 
that they should be resolving with all the power and 
imagination of their young souls to adjust themselves 
better to the world they lived in. If it occurred to 
Minga and Dunce that as a first step in their new reso¬ 
lutions the Terry abduction was hardly judicious, they 
put the idea aside; each felt committed to the thing; 
neither knew how to withdraw. 

It was the early July that is still reminiscently June. 
Orioles and tanagers were still flashing through the 
Hudson River green, rose-breasted grosbeaks and in¬ 
digo birds had only just moved on to other mysterious 
leafage. The fields and hills were dusted with silver 
daisies and amid slopes of feathery grass coreop¬ 
sis began to toss golden crowns. Out on the country 
roads the deep woods began to show, through their 
mystical vistas, tall towered carillons of speckled lily 
bells, and mountain laurel tossed pink shells on clumps 


316 


UNDER THE LAW 


of foam-lit dark. The car whirled along rocky bits of 
road where tall plantains, and milkweed and fireweed, 
things of orange and rose and scarlet plume burned 
along the ditches of water-worn gravel, or by the 
lichened gray of ranging stone walls. It all spelled 
myriad fecundities, ripe gay plant life, a thousand 
dusts and washes of seed, a thousand marchers of 
hidden atoms, a thousand caravans and progression of 
strange mysterious pollen. The rich Chord of Summer 
was resolving throughout the countryside, played by a 
hand that goes lovingly back each year to the old hymn 
of begetting, and birth, and death! The old, old 
hymn of creation that sings us all in and out of being. 

A gypsy camp on a rocky hillside back of the road 
showed dingy tents, and the tethered horses and empty 
hooded wagons stood in a sea of wild roses and butter¬ 
cups. The gypsies, rather modern, with a decided 
tendency to fireless cookers and hair-nets and grapho- 
phones, were brown and smiling in indolent gypsy 
leisure. Minga stared upon them with awe; she dimly 
got their Pagan raison d’etre, their rising to sunrise, 
their sleeping in cold stars and dew; the girl looked 
delightedly upon the strong bodies of little, half-naked 
children, and though daintily clad herself, she got a 
sense of the primal poetry and rags of the vagabond 
women who looked not too respectfully out to the 
showy car. 

“ Pretty lady, have your fortune told,” called out 
one old hag. The gleaming lawless faces said imper¬ 
tinent lawless things, the teeth glittered, and the eyes 
were saucy. Minga was for halting the car and climb- 


TEE PERCEPTIONS OF MING A 317 

ing down for this experience, but her companion re¬ 
strained her. 

“Ah, don’t! ” begged Dunstan disgustedly. “ Say, 
they’re fresh. Don’t monkey with ’em, they have 
diseases, they’re always horribly dirty. Don’t go near 
them,’’ shuddered the boy; “ they make me crawl, 
somehow.” 

The old crone sitting by a steaming kettle swung on 
a pole looked out to them leeringly. That she could 
have heard their comments seemed incredible to the 
two in the automobile, but the black gaze seemed to 
read their very souls. 

“ Ah—Mates,” the old woman called out teasingly, 
meaningly, with a curious warning. 

“ Mates,” then as the impudent curious eyes sur¬ 
veyed them, this woman made a strange gesture, pa¬ 
gan, clairvoyant and authoritative. “ Mates,” she 
screamed after them, “ there’s a dead body between 
ye; it joins ye, Mates, Mates.” 

This was too much for Miss Gerould. She of the 
pampered and sheltered life. “ Oh, my goodness,” the 
girl gasped. The face under the pretty hat paled. 
Minga, who had never before come up against the 
raw things of life, grew suddenly faint. The face of 
his friend peered up into Dunstan’s. “ Say, would 
you call that a curse ? ” inquired Minga. “ It—it 
sounded awful. Dunce; I believe it was a curse. It 
sort of scares me.” 

The boy laughed. He changed gears. “ These peo¬ 
ple are awful queer,” he admitted; “ they do know 
things; they’re good to keep away from, I think.” 


318 


UNDER TEE LAW 


Minga shivered. “ But could she make up such 
wild things? ‘a dead body between ye, joining ye/ 
how do they know ? They can’t know, can they ? ” 
Dunstan shook his head solemnly and the two young 
heads for a time cast nervous glances behind them, 
for it was a strange happening for a summer day; it 
would seem to cast a curious shadow on their adven¬ 
ture. The boy driver of the “ Green Bottle ” was 
thoughtful for a long time before he said ruminatingly, 
slowly, to his companion, “ Just the same, they do 
know things. Minga, if we slept outdoors always and 
found our roads by the stars and noticed the way 
bushes grew, and tides, and the moon, and stayed with 
just animals and just took life as it is, you know, 
without the elevators and cosmetics and electric lights 
and hotels and the things that keep us away from life, 
just took it straight like a big drink of something pow¬ 
erful, why, wouldn’t we be like that? Wouldn’t we 
look directly at big things and see them straight, not 
wrapped up in tissue paper ? ” 

Dunstan swept his free hand to the fields flowing 
by them. “ Colter, well, Colter told me an awful lot of 
funny things about life and the great laws under it. 
Just being good, for instance, you have no idea, Minga, 
the great natural laws that lie under just being good.” 
Dunstan paused. “ There were a lot of old guys, 
priests and mystics and things that knew these laws, 
but we get lost from them, getting rich and all. The 
old kind of science got ahead of them and didn’t be¬ 
lieve them, but science, nowadays, Colter says-” 

Dunstan after a few moments* reflection looked 



THE PERCEPTIONS OF MING A 319 


around at his companion. “ Did you hear the old tent- 
toad call us ‘ Mates’ ?” he asked soberly, “just 
‘ Mates ’■—I think she saw something.” 

Minga was silent. 

“ Maybe we are mates,” said the boy soberly; 
“ maybe we are, Minga.” 

The girl at his side bit her lip and her foot tapped 
impatiently on the floor. “ Now,” said Minga, “ now 
I am not going to be bothered with that stuff.” Then, 
the vivid color flying into her face, “ Dunce, oh, I 
will not have it; such nonsense, from a wrinkled old 
gypsy.” Minga was silent a moment before she 
added, “ I should think you’d want to forget what she 
said, 4 a dead body between us, uniting us,’ all that.” 

But Dunstan was looking far ahead along the vista 
of the leafy road. He said no more, only as Minga, 
sitting back, tried to start up some of their old rallying 
songs and sallies the boy kept repeating dreamily, “ She 
called us mates and it seems queer, for somehow I’ve 
always thought—you heard ? She called us 4 Mates/ 
Minga.” 

Perhaps it was the gypsy's prophecy making them 
conscious, perhaps it was the green world surrounding 
them like a round egg surrounding primal man and 
woman. But they grew silent and awed as though 
they walked toward a large surcharged destiny, so as 
they halted the car and took out their lunch basket 
they felt constrained; the rescue of Terence O’Brien 
would not take place until nearly five o’clock; they 
must pass the time alone together in this cathedral 
solemnity of summer. They tried not to look at each 


320 


UNDER THE LAW 


other for fear they should see in each other’s eyes 
things that would snatch away their control. They 
stood a little away from each other, troubled, question¬ 
ing, half afraid, yet curious. 


'\ 


CHAPTER XXIV 


“ TERRY! ” 

Evening came heavily, the river, flattened to an 
unearthly yellow calm, had thrown back all day field- 
heaviness, the prolific scent of grasses. The house was 
hot, the trees held lax droop of layered leaves. 
Languidly in the tepid air moved hundreds of unseen 
little ships of pollen, bringing to human breathing a 
thickness as of a new element. The fire-flies carrying 
their lanterns slowly up from dark grass, clotted be¬ 
neath a shrub, or hung in tiny constellations by a tree; 
while out on the roadways the black automobiles 
rolled pompously like haughty monsters whose eyes, 
scornful and contemptuous, looked far ahead past all 
poetry of tree and water toward future summer nights 
when all the world should be a shattering brilliance of 
moving engines. 

The house seemed to ache with loneliness and the 
desolation of souls at variance. There was no noisy 
gathering of the Bunch on the porch of the Judge’s 
home. Miss Aurelia worried over the absence of 
Minga and Dunstan. She had retired early to “ collect 
her thoughts,” she told herself, supporting this enter¬ 
prise by taking with her a novel by which her friend, 
Mrs. Spoyd, set great store and which, so its owner told 
Miss Aurelia, contained “not one unpleasant thing.” 

3 2I 


Q99 


UNDER THE LAW 


Miss Aurelia who read a chapter out of “ Something ” 
every night, now read a blissful chapter out of this 
novel. Here there were such minute descriptions of 
crockery and curtains as delighted her soul; here mar¬ 
ried people all “ got on ” well; in this book the children 
arrayed in fresh pinks and blues played happily with 
clean spools or pretty blocks against backgrounds of 
hollyhocks. The little brooks ran without roiling, mad 
dogs kept away from villages and arranged their lives 
to be killed when convenient by intrepid lads educated 
for the purpose. The minister was handsome, good 
and healthy, and said what was expected, the doctor 
cured all fractures whether of skull or mind, the tax 
collector sent in his bills only when people had the 
money, and the young people sprang up together in 
couples like Noah’s ark and married and started 
on a wonderful advertisement-perfected housekeep¬ 
ing. 

“ Why?” asked Miss Aurelia, yawning and settling 
down for the night. “ Why don’t more people write 
pleasant books and plays like this ? I think all writers 
who write disagreeable things should be snubbed and 
made to feel uncomfortable, they should not be asked 
to dinner nor treated politely in any way until they 
stop writing about slums and dirty people and of un¬ 
pleasant married problems. That,” said Miss Aurelia, 
putting out the light, “ would soon discourage them 
from writing horrid books, and then life would become 
normal and we should forget the things we don’t want 
to think about. I should think,” soliloquized Miss 
Aurelia, putting her handkerchief under her pillow, 


“TERRY!” 


323 


“ that writers should realize that unless they write 
only about normal things that they will never be 
popular.” 

It was after ten, but Sard had not gone up-stairs, 
yet the figure of the Judge, sitting aloof in one corner 
of the piazza, smoking and staring at the river, mag¬ 
netized while it antagonized her. Her father had not 
spoken to her since the day Colter went away. The 
girl believed that he knew in some way that she had 
met Colter after his forbidding it. She could explain 
the seeming disobedience of this final interview. She 
wanted to explain it. With all the misery of her young 
heart she wanted to explain. 

Sard, moving wistfully under the great trees, looked 
up into the branches spread over her. “ What are 
your laws ? ” she asked as of old. The girl, hot with 
surging new things, with new blind impulses and 
passions, asked but one thing, to be true to a law, to the 
highest laws of all, yet the great law that called men 
and women fiercely, insistently to each other seemed 
to be set forever at variance with other laws, laws 
that those same men and women themselves had made 
and sustained. What should one be faithful to, what 
repudiate ? 

“ What shall be my laws ? ” whispered the girl. She 
felt trembling that fierce law of blood and ardent spirit 
that bade her follow Colter now, get to him if she 
could, this night! Sard looked up, her eyes wide, her 
body swept on the tidal streams of summer night, her 
tremulous being still vibrated to the remembered clasp 
of a man’s hand, of the sense of mystery surrounding 


324 UNDER THE LAW 

s 

that man, his unuttered call to her. . . . His truth 
for her truth. 

The isolation of youth, such as Sard’s, is very great. 
No human hand can help it. It walks a way of loneli¬ 
ness that glimmers and is drenched with strange lights 
that bewilder and if it comes to any help at all it is 
the knowledge of the glory of loneliness, the glory of 
the fighter, who at last prefers the sense of ambush 
and the hazard of the wrong trail. Who prefers to 
pierce the jungle and fight his way out into a clear¬ 
ing—alone. 

Yet to those who question the night, that time when 
the earth is abandoned by its one angel, the sun, there 
comes inevitably out of the dreaming quiet the one 
word, Patience. 

“ Our law is Patience,” said the trees to Sard. The 
girl, a swift hand passed over her eyes, went in by way 
of the terrace; she passed the dark form sitting there; 
half pushing herself, half afraid she tiptoed toward 
it, to make peace, to ask forgiveness. Then, as softly, 
she tiptoed back; for deep in her heart Sard knew 
that there would be only one condition of forgiveness, 
that she repudiate the best and dearest thing that 
had come into her life, she must give up Colter. 

Now passion swept over against any calm she could 
win, the girl saw vehemently that one man’s face with 
the look of gentleness and dumb pain. “ I can’t give 
him up,” she said fiercely. Sard drew a long breath; 
she began climbing slowly up-stairs to bed. 

As she stood at the foot of the tower room stairs the 
hall clock struck eleven; there was a sudden whir of 


“TERRY!” 


325 


wheels and lights on the drive outside; she heard in¬ 
distinctly lowered voices of men, some long thing, 
covered, was taken to the kitchen, sudden stir and 
commotion ran like wild fire through the house. 

Like a spell the summer night was breathless and 
Sard was aware of heat and suffocation in her own 
throat; the telephone began ringing, a man’s voice 
speaking with the Judge. Her father’s questions and 
commands were issued curt, annoyed, angry and then 
finally hushed and with a knife-like anxiety the girl 
flew to the head of the lower stair; there were slow 
footsteps coming up into the upper hall. The light 
fell upon a stretcher,—Dunstan—his boyish head 
bloody, his mouth slightly open. Two men climbing 
gently with something collapsed and, stricken in 
their arms, the little huddled form of Minga. Sud¬ 
denly from the kitchen Dora’s piercing wail, “Terry! 
Terry! ” 


CHAPTER XXV 


THE MEDE AND THE PERSIAN 

The handsome man and woman that drove up to 
the great door of the Bogarts' home got out with a 
leisureliness that seemed the result of good nerve 
structure rather than deliberate intention. Whatever 
the anxiety in their hearts they did not show it in 
gestures or voices. Mrs. Gerould, however, kept 
rather intent eyes upon the electric bell; her gloved 
finger pushed; she pulled the scarf around her 
shoulders with a little nervous twitch. Her husband 
flicked some dust from his shoes. The two talked in 
low voices until the Bogarts’ cook opened the door; as 
they realized the absence of pretty Dora, their grave 
faces grew more apprehensive. 

Cook was expansive; she smoothed the sleeve of 
Mrs. Gerould’s silk motor coat. “ Ye ain’t been wor¬ 
ried about Minga, Mrs. Gerould? There’s nothing the 
matter with her, Praise be God!—only the fright, and 
they’ve given her somethin’ to sleep on. But him! 
Oh, it seems that I can hear him callin’ me now—Mr. 
Dunstan—our bye—it was me he was always teasin’ 
and raisin’ the divil wit.” The cook trembled; she 
burst out again: 

“ Gawd love him, the poor child wanted to save our 
Terry, poor bye—now that wasn’t no way to help, 

326 


THE MEDE AND THE PERSIAN 327 


was it? Now, Mr. Dunstan’s gone and got the law 
onto himself, he’s under arrest! But them two,” 
the cook wiped her streaming eyes, “ their little hearts 
was broke over Terry bein’ in the jug, and now look 
at it—Terry’s dead! Yes’m,” cook’s motherly heart 
broke over it, her head went down into her red hands. 
“ The guards was after them when they got him in 
the car, and fired. Yes’m, the poor boy’s gorn. Well, 
he’s better aff, that’s what I tell Dora, he’s better aff! 
I keep tellin’ her that,” blubbered cook. 

The Mede and Persian looked increasingly grave. 
The telegram had been telephoned to them and they 
had stepped into a car and driven out at once without 
much sense of tragedy—before this the two had been 
hurried to scenes of Minga’s denouements, expecting 
some result of physical rashness, of too much dancing, 
or a bad sore throat and fever, some predicament of 
finance easy of rescue, but here was a prank with 
more serious development and one tragic result. Minga 
and Dunce had played for high stakes this time; per¬ 
haps their playing was forever over! 

“ Where’s her room ? ” the two parents were at the 
door before cook could get the directions out of her 
mouth. On the way they encountered Miss Aurelia 
carrying a hot-water bottle in her hand, a flask of 
aromatic spirits of ammonia in the other. The lady 
had been wandering about with these for hours; now 
like a fountain of tears with fireworks of explanations 
round it, she began sending up hysterical rockets. 

“ Oh, Mrs. Gerould, Minga will be glad—I don’t 
suppose I—you should talk to her now . . . and 


328 


UNDER THE LAW 


Mr. Gerould, how do you do? Sard will know; she is 
with Minga—but our Dunstan, did you know? Had 
you heard the—er particulars?—he—they, under ar¬ 
rest ! ” Sobbing, Miss Aurelia, with that superb power 
of tears that some people possess, talked through a 
steady sliding of drops that ran down sluices of pale 
cheeks until the two Geroulds in spite of anxiety looked 
on admiringly—“ the poor—er—criminal, Terry—is 
dead—one can—er ”—sniff,—“ hardly grieve—but our 
boy, our Dunstan ”—sob—“ is gravely injured—the 
shoulders and head—fractures—they fear for his 

life-” To the gentle soothing of the Mede and 

Persian, Miss Aurelia leaned like a wind-blown branch, 
but the gusts of weeping came anew and the branch 
merely swayed; the two newcomers after a while de¬ 
tached themselves; with a sense of relief they stepped 
into Minga’s room. 

Sard rose swiftly out of the dark; Mrs. Gerould 
caught her two hands. “ Minga’s all right,” the girl 
whispered. “ They gave her something quieting be¬ 
cause she was so horrified—Terry, you see—Terry 
is dead.” The young form straightened; Sard spoke 
with grave calmness. 

“ Terry’s troubles are over.” 

The Geroulds took her hands—together they spoke 
encouragingly to her. “ Dear, you’ve been such a 
brick, we’re proud of you; Eleanor Ledyard has told 
us how you worked to save Terry, and you’ve done 
our little Minga so much good.” The big-hearted 
man and woman longed to take the strained look of 
tragedy from this young face. There were other 



THE MEDE AND THE PERSIAN 329 

things they knew that had turned Sard grave and old 
in this one summer. They scanned her anxiously, 
wishing she were not so set and stern. “ When Dun- 
stan gets out of the woods/’—they patted her hands— 
“ you come to us for a while and—and—well, we want 
to help.” 

This kind man and woman, understanding her, 
standing by her, shook the girl to her depths. Sard’s 
lips trembled. 

“ I’d like to,” she said, her eyes thrilled—“ I’d like,” 
Sard said simply, “ to earn my own living; maybe you 
would help me do that.” Her eyes deepened and 
thrilled, and in them the Geroulds read the old story, 
Youth at bay, yet they heard her words, “ But I 
mustn’t leave my father now—not now.” Sard, with 
a curious little gesture, motioned in the direction of 
Dunstan’s room. 

“ Of course not.” Mrs. Gerould looked at her un- 
derstandingly; the tall, graceful woman went softly 
over to the little bed and turned the night-light to see 
her daughter’s sleeping face. The little bobbed head 
was deep in the pillows. Minga opened her eyes 
slightly and drowsily closed them. “ Sard,” she spoke 
with the curious distinctness of a person speaking un¬ 
der a drug, “ I thought the Mede and the Persian 
were here—they are so dear—if they were here, you 
know ”—Minga spoke drowsily, “ Dunstan would get 
all right and Terry would come alive, the Mede and 
the Persian would fix it. They—they are hummers.” 

The man and the woman looked long and lovingly 
at her; then they looked at each other, shaking their 


330 


UNDER TEE LAW 


heads, the little figure on the bed was so dear to 
them, yet they, absorbed in their love for each other, 
seemed to have so little power, so little direction over 
her. This was their only child; she had had all the 
care and love they could lavish on her, yet she seemed 
as remote as an alien to all they believed and felt. 
They, the Mede and Persian, were deliberate, slow- 
thinking people of the agricultural age; Minga, the 
one child of their union, was the strange electric viva¬ 
cious spirit of a machine age. It was this simple fact 
that the couple hardly realized that made it impossible 
for them to train their little daughter in the way they 
thought she should go. Minga must train herself in 
the way she would go. Somehow, they believed, she 
would train herself right. 

Sard, at last, remembered her duties as daughter of 
the house. “ Your room is all ready,” she whispered; 
“ there’s a nurse coming in here at about four and then 
I shall go to bed.” She led them down the hall, halt¬ 
ing ever so slightly outside Dunstan’s door, half paus¬ 
ing to hear the footsteps of the nurse on guard there, 
explaining: 

“ The fracture isn’t fatal, but it’s a horrid splintered 
one, and they must torture him some more to-morrow, 
the car upset; it threw Minga free, but it fell on him 
—and Terry’s body-” Sard drew a long shudder¬ 

ing sigh. 

Somewhat bewildered the two parents waited to 
hear more. “ But Terry,” asked Mr. Gerould rather 
desperately, “how was it he was with Dunstan and 
Minga ? ” 



THE MEDE AND THE PERSIAN 331 

“ They had stolen him from a prison gang work¬ 
ing on the highway.” It was curious that these three 
desperately anxious people half smiled with apprecia¬ 
tion of Dunstan’s and Minga’s method, while they 
realized its deadly solemnity. The two Geroulds 
looked aghast. 

“ The prison guard shot him like a rabbit.” The 
girl turned a look of intense bitterness on the kindly 
man and woman standing there. “ You see,” said 
Sard, and her face and eyes were a mask of hard¬ 
ness, “ Terry was sentenced to twenty years in prison 
at hard labor; it was thought to be a kind sentence; 
he was under the law, and the law must not be 
cheated.” The girl's face was bitter in a way not 
good to see. The Mede and the Persian did not, 
however, meet it with cold logic. This was not a time 
for that. 

When they were alone in their room the Geroulds 
locked the door and commenced talking to each other. 
As the Persian slipped into a frilly dressing-robe and 
groped in her bag for a flashlight, she cautioned the 
Mede, “ You turn in and sleep a lot, dear; the long 
drive tired you. I’ll come back in a few hours. I 
want to relieve Sard and watch Minga and see how 
she comes out of this.” 

The Mede acquiesced. Taking off his collar, he 
sought for his tooth paste. “ Apparently your daugh¬ 
ter is a body-snatcher,” he remarked. “ I’m glad I 
sold that stock last week and that call money is im¬ 
proving. I expect we’ll have a lot of legal stuff on our 
hands. It will be Minga’s Christmas present keeping 


332 


UNDER THE LAW 


her out of jail. I’ll try to see Shipman to-morrow and 
find out what he thinks. Under arrest! your daugh¬ 
ter, Madam, is—ahem—exceptional.” 

“ Your daughter when she is in trouble,” remarked 
the Persian blandly,—“ I’m glad I have a permanent 
wave; your daughter’s activities make it necessary for 
me to look my best at all times.” 

“ Your daughter when she’s discreditable, you 
know,” returned the Mede with decision. They 
laughed. The Persian went over and rested her head 
against the Mede’s arm. “No wonder I want Minga 
to be happy always,” she said; “no wonder I’ve 
spoiled her so. I’ve always been so ridiculously happy 
and spoiled by you.” 

“ You’ve been ridiculous, all right,” said the Mede 
with conviction. “ I’ve been the happy one—well,” 
he kissed her, then bit off the end of a cigar, “ we’ve 
got to pull Minga out of this scrape and read her the 
riot act and make her sit up and face her iniquities, 
by Jove!” 

“ You,” the Persian looked back at him from the 
door, “ must scold her terribly, cut half her allowance 
and forbid her to accept any more invitations for a 
year. You remember, I always wanted you to pun¬ 
ish her when she was little.” 

“ Oh, you did ? ” The Mede rummaged in the bath¬ 
room for his safety razor; he now fitted this instru¬ 
ment together, standing in dressing-gown surveying a 
blue chin. “ I am to put on the thumbscrews, am I ? 
Madam, I do not interfere with your peculiar off¬ 
spring-” The Mede, looking in the glass, drew a 



THE MEDE AND THE PERSIAN 333 

ruminative thumb over his chin. “ I am for helping 
that poor child, Sard; she’s a tigress in a crate here— 
I’m going to help uncrate her. ,, 

The Persian, lingering by the door, laughed a little 
helplessly. “ Sard,” she said in a low voice, “ gives 
me the shivers; that fearful kind of girl who wants to 
reform the whole world before six o’clock, get life 
laundered before dinner, you know.” 

“ I do know,” said the thoughtful Mede, “ and it’s 
the kind I like; the kind that gets busy and doesn’t 
wait for George to do it. I was like that myself. I 
mean, at Sard’s age I wanted to reform the world. I 
began by marrying you.” 

“You didn’t let George do that! Do you want to 
be pinched ? ” asked the Persian viciously. 

“ Come—come,” said the Mede, “ where are the 
matches? After I have a smoke—Patty,” he looked 
toward the pretty rose-frilled figure at the door— 
“ you can’t suppose our little duck is hurt anyway, do 
you? They’re not fooling us? ” Mr. Gerould paused, 
turning a rather worried face on his wife. He waved 
the safety razor solemnly. That lady, to allay his 
fears, came close up to him. 

“ Minga Gerould is my child,” she said emphatic¬ 
ally; “ she is made of rubber, the rest of her is steel, 
her mind is a duck’s back. Her will is a kite, her 
imagination is fireproof, her humor is Charlie Chaplin 
and her heart is sound.” 

“ I believe you.” The Mede tinkered with his razor 
and looked about the room. “ Rather comfy here,” 
he remarked. “Who took the car to the garage, 


334 


UNDER THE LAW 


anybody? I didn’t lock it. Well, I guess there’s no 
need to worry; that fellow Colter is here yet, isn’t he? 
Eleanor Ledyard heard a lot about him from Watts; 
thinks he may be her husband’s brother. What rot you 
women invent and you call it intuition. I keep wor¬ 
rying about Sard’s face. I’d like to get a look at the 
fellow. Did you say you wanted to kiss me again ? ” 

“ I did not,” said the Persian, her soft eyes chal¬ 
lenging him. “ But I could give Minga another kiss 
for you when she wakes up. I am willing to do that,” 
said the Persian with an air of benevolence. 

“ You will do what I tell you,” said the Mede bel¬ 
ligerently. He pulled the tall rosy lady toward him 
and lifted her face to his. “ My life,” said the Mede, 
“ is a wreck between the two demons, wife and 
daughter.” He pressed a second kiss on a face that 
seemed the rosier by something in that second kiss. 

The two looked at each other with a sudden deep 
look of laughing devotion. Such things do sometimes 
happen! 


CHAPTER XXVI 


PENALTIES 

Sard came into Dunstan’s room with the mail. The 
nurse, a calm-faced, serious woman of mature years, 
smiled at her. “ I’m glad you’ve come; we’re getting 
a little sick of each other.” 

The haggard face of the boy looked out from the 
surgeon’s trestlework of the fractured arm and shoul¬ 
der. “ Drool! ” said the weak voice querulously. 
“ Drool! she means that I’ve been nagging her until 
she’s half crying.” The lad looked his sick mortifica¬ 
tion; he knew he could not control his peevishness, 
not just yet. He tried to cover it with the old impish¬ 
ness. “ Never mind, Miss Crayden, try to imagine 
I’m your husband; let me, the tender partner of your 
life, wipe up the floor with you.” 

In spite of the humorous quirk around the mouth, 
the nurse seemed glad to get away. She did not deny 
his self-accusation. “ If you’re going to be around 
for a while,” to the sister, “ I think I’ll just take a 
brisk walk.” 

“ Take a brisk walk ” after the all-night vigil, “ take 
a brisk walk ” that late August day with its breathless 
depths of dusty overgrowth, its sultry world of tapes¬ 
tried leaf hangings. The thing made the youthful 
ones smile. Dunce looked after the retreating form, 
firm and crisp in its white uniform, murmuring—“A 
brisk walk—at ninety-two in the shade.” 

335 


336 


UNDER THE LAW 


“ She kids herself along pretty well, doesn’t she?” 
demanded the invalid; then as his weak voice went 
into a squeak,—“ Say, how long I got to hang here 
like a dry worm on the end of a fish-hook ? Oh, Sard, 
when does this rotten weakness end? Say, why don’t 
you get me some dog poison and put me out of my 
misery ? ” 

There was a haunted look in the boy’s eyes that 
tried to smile listlessly as he pawed over his mail. 
“ Letter from Bumpy Dodge asking about college. 

Well, I guess I don’t get back to college- No, 

Bumpy, old sport, I guess I do a turn in jail, what?” 
He looked questioningly at his sister. “ Nothing from 
Minga, I suppose? Well, I don’t blame her; I did 
get her into a mess, the newspaper rot and all. I 
wonder,” said Dunstan soberly, “ what I was think¬ 
ing of,” he looked at Sard curiously, “ I wonder if 
I thought at all. I don’t believe I did think—I just 
felt, and feeling isn’t the whole show, I guess. Well, 
Minga and I certainly gummed the game.” The fig¬ 
ure lying trussed in a bower of splints and bandages 
was silent a moment. “ Gimme a cigarette, Sardine,” 
then, at her denying look, “ Why, haven’t they 
lifted the ban yet? Say, when does this surgeon Sun¬ 
day-school end, anyway? You’d think those tinker¬ 
ing old ‘ Docs ’ were women the way they go on. 
Why, in the war they gave the chaps cigarettes in their 
very coffins, and me with just a cracked rib and a little 
allegro adrumata medulla medusa Madonna crackiosis 
—can’t have a smoke.” 

It was not the old Dunce so much as his determined 



PENALTIES 


337 


imitation of the Dunce that had been. A young chap 
of nineteen cannot go through the experience of hav¬ 
ing a man of his own age shot to death across his 
knees without some changes which, in spite of modern 
science, we will assume are more than chemical. With 
the sinking down of Terence O’Brien’s fair, curly 
head, his gasping, his blood sprinkled over the car in 
its crazy speed, the crash, their own capture, and in his 
own mortal pain seeing the fugitive lying beside him, 
blood pouring out of his mouth, his eyes closing on the 
warm summer sunset—with this picture, Dunstan’s 
inner youth closed. His boy’s body, badly cracked 
and shaken, could be mended, made almost perfect 
again, but his soul with the one great wound in it now 
stood up and commanded strong meat for its suste¬ 
nance. Under the law! Dunstan must now stand 
face to face with law! 

In his first interview with his father, with his knowl¬ 
edge of the process of this law, came the sense of ris¬ 
ing to punishment that he felt able, nay, glad to meet. 
After almost twenty years, and twenty years did not 
seem long against the years Terry had lost, after 
twenty years of glad life Dunstan instead of bringing 
freedom had brought death to the wild, young Irish 
lad; he, who had had the advantages of education, of 
some measured temperate views of life; he, who for a 
reckless impulse had not considered what it is a man 
or woman puts in motion when they start out to defy 
the accepted law, now saw reasons for law. 

Such parts of the long frame as were not pinned in 
plaster writhed. Dunstan’s thoughts went to Minga 


338 


UNDER THE LAW 


—what did she think of it all? Did she feel the same 
way, like one carrying a great burden? The bullet 
of the guard who had shot Terry had barely escaped 
Minga’s head before the car had overturned and he, 
Dunstan, who ought by his very man’s nature to have 
protected her, had brought her into all this. Oh, he 
was a nice chap, a splendid fellow. Ah, well, civiliza¬ 
tion was a trap anyway, a scheme, a plan to defeat 
frank square things. The thing to do was to cast off 
the whole silly rot, get off somewhere, where a man 
got out of the cheap lying pattern of things, where a 
man really lived, realized himself, rode, killed, loved, 
hated without a pink worsted design to remind him 
that he had “ broken the law.” 

Sard looked over at him. “ Stop squirming! ” she 
ordered sternly, then—“ Dear old Pirate, don’t you 
know that convalescing is the hardest time of all?” 
She went over to the bed, scrutinizing her brother. 
“ Is the light in your eyes ? ” she asked anxiously. 
" Shall I read to you? Do you want a fresh drink? ” 

“ I want a fresh Hades,” growled the invalid. “ I 

want-” All of a sudden Dunstan’s face broke; 

he could not move, but lay here shaking. The girl, 
looking away from him, was silent. 

'‘If Minga would only write,” at last he groaned. 

“ Perhaps she doesn’t know what to say,” comforted 
the sister. 

“Dunce,” said Sard thoughtfully; she stood by the 
bed. “ Dunce,” in a mild patience unlike her, “ I 
guess you and I are up against it, aren’t we? We 
must have, somewhere, ancestors not like Dad and lit- 



PENALTIES 


339 


tie Mother and Aunt Aurelia, race-horse ancestors 
that wanted things to happen and to happen quick 
bang, right off, and they don’t, they just won’t. No 
matter what we do, we have to wait, no matter how 
much we care,” said Sard slowly, “ we just have to 
wait; everybody has to wait, I guess. It’s a sort of 
law.” 

“Terry didn’t wait,” said Dunce bitterly; “he, 
thank God, got out.” 

“ I’ve been reading,” she returned thoughtfully, 
she was trying to draw him out of this mood, “ a 
book that tells how Venice grew up out of the sea; 
and it seems like life somehow. The streams came 
down from the mountains carrying grains, just grains. 
Dunce, of sand, and the ice and snow rolled down 
more clay and sand, all the currents of the sea kept 
carrying deposits to one spot until,” absorbedly the 
girl recounted the dreamy geologic tale, her eyes fixed 
on distance. Dunstan heard her through patiently. 

“ Sounds like the rags old Colter used to chew,” he 
said, not uninterestedly. “ By the way, Sard, what 
became of that mucker; turned out to be a ne’er-do- 
well, after all ? What ? ” 

His companion was silent. Something in her face 
contracted as she tried to answer lightly. “ Oh, I 
guess he’s all right. Mr. Shipman has been following 
him up. He was ill after he left here. Then he went 
to work somewhere, and then I don’t exactly know,” 
said Sard. “ Mr. Shipman is keeping his eye on him. 
I don’t exactly know-” 

The invalid tried to change his position. “ That so ? 



340 


UNDER THE LAW 


Got him work, did he ? ’’ he asked. “ Say, ain’t Ship- 
man the dear old prophet? By Gad, Sardine, what 
makes a gray-headed chap like that and what makes 
an old spinny like Miss Crayden homely, you 
know, and out of the game, what makes ’em do all 
they can for you and not cuss you back when you cuss 
and not let you get the blue devils, but hold umbrellas 
of hope over you and keep reminding you of another 
You that’s back of you, sort of, and ringing up your 
good deeds like spiritual fares and everything. Say," 
said Dunstan earnestly, “ I want to know. These old- 
timers, there ain’t much in it for them. They must 
know it. Why in thunder do they keep making every¬ 
body on the Merry-go-round think they are going to 
get the Gold Ring?" 

His sister laughed. Sard, perching on Dunstan’s 
bed, thoughtfully traced out the pattern of the white 
counterpane. The girl, thinner, with a look of limpid 
patience in the brook-clear eyes, tried to answer the 
question to herself. What, indeed, had made Ship- 
man, who she had guessed was a baffled, lonely man, 
turn from his own concerns to help and encourage 
her? Why should he, to whom she could give noth¬ 
ing, keep the dark eyes with their look of “ courage " 
so fixed upon her that even when he was not there 
she saw the look, heard the words and knew that the 
lawyer’s strength and help were hers to call upon? 
Sard did not know that Watts Shipman, after Colter’s 
collapse and his subsequent recovery and revelations, 
had been to Judge Bogart’s with astounding news. 
The lawyer had sat in the Judge’s library giving fact 


PENALTIES 341 

after fact of the distinction, nay, the actual academic 
fame of the Judge’s hired man. 

“ He’s chipper enough now,” he placidly told the 
Judge; “ he’s enormously improved! Last time I saw 
him he was walking up and down the campus at a re¬ 
union, laughing and talking with old comrades.” The 
lawyer fixed rather scrutinizing eyes on his superior. 
“ You wouldn’t,” he said tentatively, “ I beg your par¬ 
don if I interfere, but your daughter is so noble, so 
superb a little fighter. You wouldn’t stand in the way 
now—of anything?” 

There was a long silence. The Judge, some obsti¬ 
nacy in his throat, sat staring ahead of him. The new 
sense of Sard, a girl, a young unformed girl, having 
somehow gotten at the fine intelligence and soul that 
had dwelt concealed in this man, staggered him. 

Meticulously Shipman had given him every detail. 
Dr. Martin Ledyard’s heroic effort to save his friends 
from the terrible scourge of Congo smallpox, the de¬ 
sertion of the natives with canoes, the subsequent shock 
of learning of his brother’s trouble and suicide, the 
fever in the hospital, his sudden rising and escape with 
only the clothes he wore from the beginning of con¬ 
valescence, the tale of his long wandering from farm 
to farm, the half sustained body and mind a blank, the 
exposure and terror of a partial memory, were things 
that Shipman had gotten from Ledyard’s own lips bit 
by bit, and they had been confirmed by the specialist to 
whom the lawyer had taken Colter. That the eminent 
scientist had completely recovered, a recovery that had 
begun the very hour that Sard had recognized him as 


342 


UNDER THE LAW 


he sat on the village curb for what he was, was an es¬ 
tablished medical fact. “ Surely,” Watts Shipman 
leaned forward, the face he bent on the Judge was 
solemn, “ you could not interfere with your daughter's 
happiness now. Ledyard,” said the lawyer mildly, 
“ is not likely to come to her until he has your per¬ 
mission.” 

“ Sard,” said the Judge, his eyes had a light of the 
book of Moses in them, “ Sard is to come to her father 
and acknowledge her impatience and disrespect.” 

“ Pshaw! ” The lawyer rose. He walked to the 
window and looked out. Then, his mouth torn be¬ 
tween rage and amusement, he said politely, “Ahem! 
I don’t exactly see how she could under the circum¬ 
stances do that exact thing.” 

“ That is all I ask,” said the Judge finally. No 
sense of the ridiculous came to his rescue. He got up, 
went to a bookshelf and took down book after book, 
examined its cover for dust and blemish, and returned 
it without opening to the shelf. It was a curious habit 
of the Judge’s to do this when deep in thought. 
Somehow it was like his treatment of human beings, 
thought Shipman. 

“As for my son,” remarked the gray-lipped mouth, 
“ he will learn, he will learn something about the 
Law.” Judge Bogart went back to his chair. He sat 
down, stretched out his legs and fixed his look upon 
the other man. “ He will learn something about the 
Law,” said he implacably. “ I have done nothing to 
spare him,” said the Judge with an air of satisfaction. 

Yet Dunstan’s first interview with his father had 


PENALTIES 


343 


not had all this quality of implacability. The boy’s 
fever over, his limbs lightened of certain casts and the 
eyes deep and haunted, were things to meet which the 
older man had braced, things from which the Judge, 
with all his hardness, had shrunk; even the judicial 
habit could not overlook the danger the Judge had 
been in, of losing his son, the man who bore his name. 
With a curious sense of pride he, himself, could not 
understand, a perception of the absurd gallantry, the 
chivalry underlying the actions of a fool breaker of 
laws, the old man, his own prerogatives negatived, had 
fairly to screw up his courage to begin the interview 
as he determined it should be begun. 

“ You know that you will have to meet the penalty,” 
he rasped. 

The dark eyes met the gooseberry ones squarely. 

“ Yes, sir, I’ve looked the thing up.” 

“ It is likely,” said the Judge dryly, “ that you will 
have to give up college and go into business, if indeed 
you are spared incarceration. The fine is very heavy; 
you are, in spite of bail, under arrest.” 

At the word “ incarceration ” a swift gleam in Dun- 
stan’s eyes gave his father absurd hope. He was not 
injured, then—he was—all right—that was the old 
impudence, curse it. 

“ I shall be glad,” said the young fellow slowly, “ to 
take any penalty that is rightfully mine, that would 
come to any man that did what I did, that had,” the 
boy gulped a moment, “ that had broken the law he 
lived under .” 

“Ah,” the old gray face, the hard-boiled eyes, looked 


344 


UNDER THE LAW 


watchfully upon the young face with its fierce pride— 
“ then you realize that you were a fool, that you risked 
my name, your own honor, to save from just punish¬ 
ment a ruffian who had broken the law ? ” 

Something wild, desperate, leaped into the face on 
the pillows; it was a hurt, appealing look, different 
from Sard’s fiery pride and steady intention; it was 
not so defiant, it was the more helpless and miserable, 
as who would say, “ I am punished enough.” The 
Judge’s eyes on the thin young face at sight of this 
look felt a sudden strange pang. It reminded him 
of— 

“ We love Foddy—Foddy won’t put us in prison 
with the naughty prisoners.” 

Oh, little woman lips; oh, soft little hands and sweet 
voice; oh, hundred innocent tendernesses and faiths 
and needs- 

The Judge stared at his son; the dark eyes closed 
and Dunstan lay there like death, only one long, thin 
hand clenched and unclenched on his chest. 

They rise up sometimes, these who were our for¬ 
bears and become our good angels; when we need 
them and call sincerely they rise up in our eyes and 
hearts and speak for us. If we have kept the house 
garnished and clean only the best of them will come 
to us bearing in their hands lamps to light our paths; 
when we call out in sheer agony for light and lead¬ 
ing, all the noblest and fairest of our line rise up for a 
hundred comforting and strengthening ministries, to 
lead us on our blind path. Dunstan’s mother, stand¬ 
ing in his lad’s eyes, had risen once and looked at her 



PENALTIES 


345 


husband. “ Dearest/' said the little timid voice, 
‘‘what are you doing with my son—our boy? Treat 
our little Dunstan fairly." 

For a long time the old Judge stood at the window, 
the gray lips trembling, the gooseberry eyes desper¬ 
ately blinking. “ The heart bowed down with weight 
of woe," thought the Judge, “ I will go down and 
play that record—she—she was fond of it." 

At last he turned toward his son’s bed. “ There," 
said the Judge. He cleared his throat with a rasp 
that could have been heard in the garage. “ Hum— 
I—I guess I’ve been breaking a law, too, hey ? " He 
glanced up at the nurse who had just entered. “ I 
don’t want to disobey the doctor’s laws." He stood 
for a moment looking down at his son. “ I have a 
letter from that little vixen Minga," said Dunstan’s 
father; then as he saw the slow red creep into the 
boy’s cheek, “ I think—ahem—I think she shows 
character—she seems to realize that her conduct was 
—I’ll send it up to you," said the Judge. He held out 
his hand. “ You and I must protect Minga," he said 
slowly; “ we must keep her out of this thing. Hey, 
What ? Have her out here, hey ? Cheer us up 
some—hey—What ? " 

The two men looked at each other; under their dif¬ 
fering ages was the same cool facing of facts. Dun¬ 
stan did not turn from his knowledge of himself, a man 
who had incurred the penalty of the law; neither did 
the Judge as father turn from that fact. Facts are 
sometimes the most wholesome curative things of life. 
When two people resolutely face them together, with 


346 


UNDER THE LAW 


the same degree of earnestness and honesty, they con¬ 
struct a bridge over great abysses of distrust, misun¬ 
derstanding and heart-break. 

The Judge started for the door. " Take care of 
yourself/' he said as he looked wistfully at those dark 
eyes that had held just for one moment the dear wife’s 
look. Then the Judge remembered Dunstan’s love of 
a joke. “If you ever steal a murderer again,” he 
said, “ I’ll thrash you within an inch of your life.” 

It was a joke ! It was made with an effort; the very 
machinery creaked and the finished product looked 
dusty and wizened, but it was a joke! Dunstan, the 
dark-eyed humorist, saw it and grinned. The Judge 
returned to the bed. Two hands went spontaneously 
out, a grim, dry, purple one and a slim, thin, weak one. 
They clinched—then the door closed and the Judge 
went down-stairs. 

Late that evening Miss Bogart heard the phono¬ 
graph circling forth the “ heart bowed down with 
weight of woe.” . . . She turned another page in 

the “ pleasant ” book. “ My poor brother,” said Miss 
Aurelia to herself; “ he seems to turn naturally to the 
—er—melancholy—but I should think,” the lady 
thought sleepily, “ that now that Colter isn’t Colter at 
all, but the celebrated scientist Dr. Ledyard, that he, 
she, they-” 



CHAPTER XXVII 


THE JUDGE IS IMPRESSED 

It was late September; the yellow maples threw 
gold on sky and ground; oaks and hickories were man¬ 
tled in ruddy purples. Along the banks of the river 
the solemn procession of outgoing summer was begun; 
on dry nights mountain fires spread crackling smoky 
fringes. The Westchester hills, the hills of Pocantico, 
were trailed in grape-colored mists; bloom was on the 
Ramapos; amethystine smokes along the Highlands 
and the Palisades. 

There was drowse and arrest in the air, a kind of 
heat that was different from summer, more dazing, 
more intensely keyed, with greater power to make one 
restless. Sard, lying on her couch in the tower-room, 
felt as if a world was closing in on her, as if the sky 
pressed and the hills leaned to smother. She had 
been reading to Dunstan, for the first time sitting up 
in his wheeled chair, had seen him drift off to sleep, 
and had then put down her book with an unconquer¬ 
able sense of listlessness, of lack of purpose that had 
somehow closed in on her. 

The girl, her body and mind built for action, for 
creative and progressive things, found herself victim¬ 
ized by a slowly narrowing circle of life, static, un¬ 
imaginative, unprogressive; she was the fiery center of 

347 


348 


UNDER THE LAW 


a wooden wheel of existence that revolved in accus¬ 
tomed sameness with no effort, to no purpose. 

“ When Dunstan gets well/’ thought Sard desper¬ 
ately, “ when Dunstan doesn’t need me, what shall I 
do then ? Aunt Aurelia doesn’t really need me, Father 
will have nothing to do with me unless I—just—just 
capitulate. And I can’t do that. What shall I do ? ” 

The girl’s mind, shrinking from her father’s idea of 
her, went over the situation; the only way to clear up 
that situation was to say she had been mistaken in 
Colter, that she proudly told herself she could never 
do. But supposing Colter never came back, never— 
came—back to Willow Roads? Life would go on the 
same and, of course, one could adapt one’s self to any¬ 
thing; with a shiver the girl tried to think what this 
adaptation would mean. 

As far as those of her own group were concerned, 
there was no life. All mingling with the Bunch was 
over. Life, then, would mean social cliques and 
women’s clubs, more or less boss controlled, politi¬ 
cally influenced, “ run ” by one or two personalities, 
powerful in prestige but prejudiced and limited as to 
opportunity or progress. In such gatherings the girl 
instinctively felt there could be nothing constructive 
for her; the chemistry of these organizations was con¬ 
trolled by the acids of personal dislike or preference, 
or jealousy. Little careful nothings of possessions or 
dress were the intellectual meat of these associations, 
the inhibitions of the mentally torpid or the censorious 
attitude of the unimaginative virtuous. None of these 
things attracted a girl of Sard’s impulse, a soul that 


THE JUDGE IS IMPRESSED 349 


demanded fine contacts, the eager mingling of men 
and women in associations of tolerance and forward 
looking, the stimulus of persons of vivid experience. 
Sard mentally said “ No ” to it all. 

Yet it was characteristic of her inherent nobility 
that she should attempt to force herself to an interest 
in these home matters, to attempt to form herself 
humbly on that narrow model. “ It isn’t nice to be 
choosy and exclusive,” thought the girl; “ real people 
are never that. I mustn’t be ‘ superior,’ whatever I 
do.” She bent puzzled brows. “ What would Colter 
have thought to be the right thing, to stay here and 
grow smaller and more timid and with less fresh im¬ 
pulse, or to break away, earn my own living, and, 
from Father’s point of view, forfeit my right to my 
home ? ” “Ah! what would Colter think ? ” That 
was the sentence that dominated all Sard’s life now. 

From under her pillow the girl drew a letter from 
Watts Shipman—eagerly her eye sought one passage— 
one she had read and reread : 

“ I must not tell you all the circumstances, they are 
not mine to tell. Colter will want to tell you himself, 
but I have been able to help a little and I am rejoiced 
for the man you helped to save. Our friend Colter 
has surely come into his own, Miss Sard, and it is 
rather a magnificent Own. I do congratulate you on 
your discrimination in tramps. I suspect you have 
created a tradition that will some day be like a final 
degree. ‘ In 19 — he was discovered by Miss Sard 
Bogart, which justified his previous achievements in a 
blaze of glory.’ Forgive me for being enigmatic. 
Courage! Miss Winged Victory, that you may be 



350 UNDER THE LAW 

happy in a parlous world is the deep wish of your true 
friend, 

“ Watts Shipman/' 

Sard went over it hungrily for the hundredth time. 
She knew this paragraph by heart; it swept her with 
impatient excitement. Why was it all so obscure? 
Why was so little told her? Had Colter really found 
himself? What was that real self? The girl’s heart 
stood still; perhaps since Watts wrote this something 
had happened. . . . 

The afternoon wore on; the girl, with an ejacula¬ 
tion, sprang up. “ What do I mean by loafing around 
like this ? ” Sard inquired hotly. “ Colter never loafed, 
he was always busy mending, rearranging, working, 
studying. I can’t stand this lazy life, I won’t, I won't 
just drift; I will be like Colter.” 

She went into the little dressing-room and bathed 
her face, looking with wonder into the eyes grown so 
dark and wide, so strangely listening and startled. 
She flung open a drawer and lifted out a clean white 
dimity, a frock with fresh frills and a soft sash. Sard 
rustled into it with a little winged sense of pining for 
the air, to be moving, going somewhere, experiencing 
something. But the soft white seemed vapid to the 
serious brown eyes so unaware of their own vitality. 
Sard, frowning upon this absence of color, opened a 
casket and took out a long rope of cut amber beads. 
Her mother’s necklace, a thing honey-like with sun- 
color, quivering with golden lights. “ Funny,” thought 
the girl, ruminatively, “ I never cared to wear these 


THE JUDGE IS IMPRESSED 351 


before.” She ran the smooth clicking morsels of am¬ 
ber through caressing fingers. “ Little Mother,” she 
thought tenderly, “ I suppose these reached almost to 
your knees; they hardly come to my waist. I’m not a 
bit like you.” 

With yearning face, the girl turned to her book¬ 
shelves. Sard vaguely thought of going down to the 
river edge to read. The young fingers paused over 
“ The Sonnets from the Portuguese ”; not until this 
summer had Sard understood these exquisite verses. 
Now, almost with reverence she drew the volume 
forth. It was a girl’s way to evade all the cold ques¬ 
tions, all the sneering comments, the Gorgon stare of 
“ practical life.” With some sense of being compan¬ 
ioned by the little book, Sard gave a touch here and 
there to her pretty room, patted a pillow, pulled down 
a shade and started to leave it. 

Miss Aurelia’s flat heels clapped up the stairs; the 
face that met Sard’s look was mystified and potential. 
Her aunt, taking a chair, gasped a little. 

“Aunt Reely,” scolded Sard, “ how you pant; you 
take these stairs too fast. I do believe you get more 
tired than you let us see; you’ve got to go easier,” said 
Sard in gentle bullying. 

The girl these days had been wistfully tender of her 
aunt. Sard had great need to be tender to someone. 
Miss Aurelia exulted in the solicitude. “ Sard and I 
are very much alike,” she had told Mrs. Spoyd; “ we 
are congenial.” The timid lady exulted in what 
seemed to her like the opening of a new regime. To 
have Sard’s companionship in all her little flutters and 


352 


UNDER THE LAW 


wonderings and excitements! Miss Aurelia had carf 
fully swept up Sard’s heart for her. Everything to 
the aunt’s perception was neatly ticketed and put 
away; all reminiscence of that er—unfortunate—er, in¬ 
fatuation for the “ Man on the Place.” Now, how¬ 
ever, the rabbity mouth looked awed. Miss Aurelia 
was more uncertain than usual; she eyed Sard irreso¬ 
lutely. 

“ Someone has er—called—could you go down at 
once—I see you are presentable. I—you see,” said 
Miss Aurelia with elaboration, “ I am very untidy.” 

Miss Bogart was invariably perfectly groomed and 
arranged; Sard giggled in derision. 

“Aunt Reely, what more could you do to be ‘ pre¬ 
sentable,’ as you call it ? ” 

“ My—er—hands,” explained Miss Aurelia, with 
curious firmness—“ I have been polishing those little 
Chinese brasses on my desk and they-” She dis¬ 

played fingers that looked immaculate, but which she 
insisted smelled of brass polish. “ It takes so long to 
get off. Now, if you could run down,” insisted the 
lady mildly. 

“ Of course.” The girl ran a comb through her 
tawny hair. “ Don’t you know who it is ? ” 

“ Dora said some name like the minister’s, I thought. 
Or was it a lady? I did not pay attention.” Miss 
Aurelia sniffed violently at her fingers. “ Phew, 
phew! Sometimes I think they should invent a brass 
polish that is odorless. You never know when you’ve 
got rid of it. Could you go down at once? It seems 
so rude to keep them—him—waiting, and I always 



THE JUDGE IS IMPRESSED 353 

think/’ said Miss Aurelia nervously, “ that when one is 
not sure the living-room is dusted, it is better to give 
him—her—them—less time to look about.” 

It was not different from her aunt’s usual incoher¬ 
ence. Sard hardly noticed the tremor, the little ex¬ 
cited pat. She went slowly down the stairs across the 
hall, pushing back the heavy portiere of the living- 
room. 

The man who turned from the window and came 
toward her did not wear an old gray flannel shirt and 
khaki trousers. He was clad in the white flannels that 
make a man look taller, lighter, of a cooler vigor and 
grace. The hair that swept back from his forehead 
was a bright chestnut, and his face was- 

Sard stood half turning for flight. The man did 
not yet take her hand, but he looked swiftly into her 
eyes. 

“ Was it unfair to come like this ? ” he demanded. 
It was evident that he could hardly leash the note of 
gladness in his voice. “ Miss Aurelia thought it better 
not to tell you, that if you knew you might not come 
down.” There was unutterable tenderness in the light 
of those eyes. “ I could not wait,” the man admitted 
quickly. 

There was a moment’s silence, in which she stood 
staring at him. This was Colter, the Man on the 
Place. This was not Colter. This was a glad, confi¬ 
dent person, who, something came into Sard’s throat, 
was sure—sure of everything. Much younger, 
much more buoyant than that one she had known! 
And, too sure! 



354 


UNDER THE LAW 


The tall man looked at her, his expression changing 
slightly. Then as he glanced at the hand she had not 
offered him, “ I—I have been talking with your fa¬ 
ther,” he said quietly. 

Sard tried to smile back, tried to smile in greeting, 
sympathy, but her heart pounded. She was instinct 
for flight, a thing suddenly confronted with strange¬ 
ness, facing someone who was—too eager! Slight as 
the hesitation was, the man saw it. He did not move 
except with great gentleness to draw her to a chair. 
He stood speaking tranquilly, with a curious authority 
Sard had never seen before. It made her thrill. “ I 
have been talking to Judge Bogart,” this triumphant 
man in white flannels said easily; “ he gave me per¬ 
mission to see you. I have told him about myself; 
you see,” he smiled, “ I have found out who I am! 
Sard, aren’t you glad ? Don’t you care ? ” 

“You have found out—who you are?” said the 
girl thickly, childishly. Her gaucherie was painful to 
her and evident and very dear to the man perceiving 
it. The deep fire-blue eyes rested on hers a moment. 
An indefinable softness crept into them, replacing that 
look of confidence and power. The tall frame bent a 
little toward her, and she was aware as of a curious 
tenseness of resolution—a self-control such as she had 
felt that night in the little fruit orchard. Colter, who 
looked at her with understanding, knew that for the 
moment his chiefest hold on Sard was gone. Drink¬ 
ing her down with a thirst born of his knowledge of 
her, yet this triumphant man before her realized that 
now that he no longer had need of her compassion she 


THE JUDGE IS IMPRESSED 355 


had as yet no other kind of passion for him! The 
dark days being over, Martin Ledyard, the scientific 
adventurer, whose name was famous all over the 
world, was standing irresolute, abashed, not able, it 
seemed, to win back the bright look of pity from the 
brook-clear eyes, the little maternal cadence in a girl’s 
voice. He saw her disturbed, at bay. 

If, however, he felt taken aback, disappointed, there 
was no hint of it. He looked at her with unutterable 
tenderness, the kind of look Sard had never before 
seen on a man’s face. “ I see,” he said simply, “ you 
don’t care for me—so much—in my triumph. You 
think that now I do not need you, Sard? Not need 
you, my Happiness ? Sard,” she quivered at her 
name on his lips, “ are you sorry you saved me, sorry 
I came—back ? ” 

She shook her head. She had risen. It was like 
them both that they should take it standing, trying to 
be square with each other, striving to get to the thing 
that lay between them. The Judge, passing through 
the hall, on an uneasy excited walk, coughed gruffly. 
Hearing this cough, with a strange feeling of unreal¬ 
ity, Sard tried to realize what had happened. There 
was her father outside, not caring that she was with 
this man. Why—then—then—the Judge knew then 
that she had read true! 

“You say you have talked with Father?” A 
wild wave of relief tore through the girl; she 
tried once more to lift her eyes to the face, reading 
the wistful look dwelling on it, loving it, yet coming 
no nearer to it. Ah, there would be no more Gorgon 


356 


UNDER THE LAW 


“practical life” now. She had seen true, she had 
known, known —and with a curious effort the girl tried 
to look smilingly and frankly back at this man. On 
“ Colter’s ” own face there was left only a trace of 
the old baffled sadness; new triumph tore through her, 
“Colter” had won out, won out! As in a dream, 
she listened to his voice. 

“ I hoped you and I might care for all the ‘ under¬ 
dogs ’ in the world—together.” 

Then after another short silence: 

“ You remember the night in the little fruit or¬ 
chard? I think you cared for me then, and I,” the 
man’s voice faltered, “ I adored you. You remember 
other times, I think,” he said gently, “ that you did 
care and I wanted you to know that that was what 
cured me, brought things back. I didn’t frighten 
you then, did I, Sard? You put your hand in mine, 
but,” hesitatingly, “I seem to frighten you now; you 
wouldn’t come to me now ? ” 

She stood pulling at the amber chain, and after a 
moment “ Colter ” also touched the chain. He fol¬ 
lowed her hand on the golden rope. It seemed to 
them both that something rather terrible might happen. 
To Sard, it was as if in this pause some wonderful 
gate might close, some beautiful thing might pass out, 
never to return. But the woman that rose up in the 
girl asserting with vehemence her right to this man 
frightened that other untried creature, the Winged 
Victory of freedom and innocent impulses. Things 
had changed! 

Oh, how could Sard prevent the gate from closing, 


THE JUDGE L Sf IMPRESSED 357 


the lovely thing from ending, unless she did the thing 
that it seemed to her she could not do? Instinctively 
the girl looked to him for help; but he, it seemed, 
either could not or would not help. No, “ Colter ” 
would not make it easy for her. 

“ I came too suddenly,” said he decisively; there 
was a stern note of self-condemnation. “ Dear, I 
wasn’t fair to you; I should have thought things out,” 
stammered the man. A swift look of sorrow swept 
over his face. “ Things aren’t quite the same, are 
they ? ” He hesitated. 

Oh, no, they were not the same; they were not the 
same! The girl’s heart, plunging, recognized this. 
It has been so easy to be tender to a baffled, helpless 
man, someone in trouble; it was so hard to meet 
this strange, glad, powerful person who attracted 
her like fatal fire, who, some way, had mastery of 
her. 

The gruff cough sounded again outside, the curtain 
was pulled aside and the Judge entered. He had a 
furtive air of curiosity and exultation. It was plain 

he could not keep his hands off. “ Hum—ha-” 

he said. “ I’ve been comparing your—um—papers 
with Mr. Shipman’s—very strange experiences, very 
strange experiences! Well, sir, I’m glad you came 
out as you have.” The Judge, realizing that he ad¬ 
dressed Martin Ledyard, a man whose name ranked 
high in universities all over the world, was almost 
humble. He stood straighter, his gooseberry eyes 
shot honest congratulation. Down deep in his heart, 
like all men, he honored the man of adventure, more 



358 


UNDER THE LAW 


than the man of science. He could not, however, 
keep the ring of pride from his voice as he turned 
benevolently to his daughter. 

“ I congratulate you.” The Judge blew his nose; he 
pushed his handkerchief back in his pocket. He 
stared rather nervously at Sard. “ Hum—you’ve 
made a distinguished friend.” 

The blunt, carefully-concealed apology went home. 
Sard drew a long, fluttering breath. This was the 
man who had stood between her and the world all her 
life; this was the hard, stern man who had made life 
possible and impossible for her, who had hindered and 
ignored and indulged and scouted her; who had in¬ 
sulted and protected her! Some sense of the con¬ 
flicting laws of parenthood got to Sard’s heart, some¬ 
thing new and keen leaped to life, this man’s blood 
ran through her veins, something mysterious, a great 
bond, connected them. Ah! it was the Law. In spite 
of everything it was the Law! “ We love Foddy, lit¬ 
tle Sard.” It was the Law! 

“ Dad,” said the girl breathlessly, “ you—you know 
now ? ” 

Sard sobbed just once. It was like her to fly to 
this stern man, to bury her tawny head on his breast. 
The Judge detached himself, resolutely, with decision. 
Women did these things, they were to all logic absurd. 
What did another man, under such circumstances, do ? 
The gooseberry eyes rather shamefacedly consulted 
the quiet eyes of “ Colter.” “ There,” said the Judge 
to his daughter, “ there, I don’t know what all this is 
about!” 


THE JUDGE IS IMPRESSED 359 


But the other man knew, and he knew that when 
the Judge made his embarrassed exit that there was no 
one for Sard to turn to but him! Therefore, when 
she, with that little desperate sob, did turn, she did not 
see his face, for he, somehow, contrived that her own 
could be hidden. “ Colter’s ” arms tightened about 
her and his lips whispered on her hair. “ I think,” 
said the man softly, “ that if we are very quiet we can 
hear the river freshening.” It was the old remem¬ 
bered voice, like a quieting hand laid on her. It was 
the voice that had spoken that midsummer night in the 
orchard. Sard, with a little quivering sigh, gave her¬ 
self to it. 

No one saw the Judge that evening, but afar off the 
phonograph could be heard playing, “ The Heart 
Bowed Down With Weight of Woe.” Miss Aurelia 
paused to say “ Good-night ” to Dunstan. “ I always 
feel relieved when I hear your father playing that 
tune,” she remarked. “ It is an indication that he is 
feeling better, that his mind is relieved. This, ahem, 
affair of Sard’s is—er—very interesting; Mrs. Spoyd, 
now that she knows the particulars, says that to her 
it is—er—most affecting! ” 










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